


Tales of KeyClan

by harmonicat (Scarheart99789)



Category: Warriors - Erin Hunter
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, I use the same pick up line 3 times because apparently I don't know any other ones, Major Character Injury, Multi, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:53:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 22
Words: 39,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26112187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scarheart99789/pseuds/harmonicat
Summary: A writing archive for a Clan of my ocs, KeyClan, from Create-A-Clan on Chickensmoothie.com!The first chapter will be updated with each chapter as it's the character list. If a chapter has one of the tags in it, I will put a warning in the authors note!
Relationships: Original Character/Original Character
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> All the cats listed have clickable names that will link to my toyhouse pages for them! This is so they can have proper credit to the artists! Please don't steal any of them, as they're made only for usage by Create-A-Clan members!

**Ringmaster**  
[Cypressstar](https://toyhou.se/5729611.cypressstar): longhaired solid black tom with copper eyes; blind in his left eye  
↪ ★★★★★★★ _7/9 lives_

**Trapeze Artist**  
[Swiftwind](https://toyhou.se/5729866.swiftwind): longhaired blue abyssinian tom with golden eyes

**Tamers**  
[Weasel](https://toyhou.se/5729638.weasel): shorthaired ruddy abyssinian molly with yellow eyes  
[Pollen](https://toyhou.se/5729961.pollen): shorthaired black mackerel tabby molly with white paws and blue eyes

**Acrobats**  
[Syrinxecho](https://toyhou.se/5729685.syrinxecho): longhaired seal point siamese tom with blue eyes  
[Auletrix](https://toyhou.se/5729701.auletris): shorthaired seal point siamese molly with pale blue eyes  
[Grasswhistle](https://toyhou.se/5729760.grasswhistle): shorthaired black mackerel tabby tom with green eyes  
[Mewlin](https://toyhou.se/5729776.mewlin): mediumhaired black mackerel tabby molly with white chin and red eyes  
[Diamondstorm](https://toyhou.se/5730060.diamondstorm): mediumhaired pure white tom with golden eyes  
[Jinglebee](https://toyhou.se/5729661.jinglebee): shorthaired black and white tabby molly with yellow eyes  
[Deerdash](https://toyhou.se/5730266.deerdash): longhaired black ticked tabby molly with yellow eyes  
[Babypuff](https://toyhou.se/5729941.babypuff): shorthaired ginger mackerel tabby molly with one copper eye  
[Slybird](https://toyhou.se/5799069.slybird): longhaired chocolate bengal molly with ice blue eyes  
[Skullbash](https://toyhou.se/5908882.skullbash): mediumhaired black tabby tom with low white and steel blue eyes  
[Bookclub](https://toyhou.se/6699495.bookclub): mediumhaired black tabby with green eyes  
[Mist](https://toyhou.se/5729744.mist): shorthaired black mackerel tabby with yellow eyes  
[Wishflower](https://toyhou.se/5729891.wishflower): shorthaired dilute ticked torbie and white molly with orange eyes  
[Turtledove](https://toyhou.se/5730172.turtledove): shorthaired gray and white molly with brown eyes  
[Cattywampusfur](https://toyhou.se/6700208.cattywampusfur): longhaired blue ticked tabby molly with golden eyes  
[Snickersnee](https://toyhou.se/6699630.snickersnee): longhaired ruddy somali with amber eyes  
[Scarheart](https://toyhou.se/5730148.scarheart): shorthaired dilute calico molly with gray eyes  
[Ironhead](https://toyhou.se/6699945.ironhead): shorthaired cinnamon bengal tom with dark amber eyes  
[Icecream](https://toyhou.se/6699996.icecream): longhaired grey spotted tabby tom with yellow-green eyes  
[Sunsetkiss](https://toyhou.se/6700006.sunsetkiss): shorthaired ginger mackerel tabby molly with low white and green eyes  
[Dustbunny](https://toyhou.se/6700015.dustbunny): longhaired grey molly with copper eyes  
[Featherdance](https://toyhou.se/6700035.featherdance): shorthaired brown mackerel tabby with mint green eyes  
[Beefjerky](https://toyhou.se/7433950.beefjerky): mediumhaired black tortoiseshell munchkin with low white and golden eyes  
[Flyingbison](https://toyhou.se/7433964.flyingbison): longhaired dilute tortoiseshell with golden eyes  
[Driftveil](https://toyhou.se/7433983.driftveil): longhaired dilute tortoiseshell laperm tom with yellow eyes  
[Toothpaste](https://toyhou.se/5730221.toothpaste): shorthaired black molly with low white and dark orange eyes  
[Peppershaker](https://toyhou.se/5729975.peppershaker): mediumhaired black mackerel tabby tom with low white and dark brown eyes  
[Energyball](https://toyhou.se/5730036.energyball): mediumhaired black mackerel tabby with low white and pale yellow eyes  
[Shadowmist](https://toyhou.se/5730044.shadowmist): mediumhaired black and white mackerel tabby molly with green eyes  
[Pillowcase](https://toyhou.se/7433998.pillowcase): longhaired dilute caliby tom with violet eyes  
[Lavaripple](https://toyhou.se/7434006.lavaripple): longhaired black and gold tortoiseshell molly with amber eyes  
[Snowtuft](https://toyhou.se/7434061.snowtuft): shorthaired pure white with blue eyes; deaf

**Jugglers**  
[Fang](https://toyhou.se/5730013.fang): mediumhaired black mackerel tabby tom with low white and blue eyes  
[Rustpaw](https://toyhou.se/5730323.rustpaw): shorthaired black mackerel tabby tom with low white and steel blue eyes  
[Bunchberrypaw](https://toyhou.se/5730371.bunchberrypaw): shorthaired black and white mackerel tabby molly with dark brown eyes  
[Nincompooppaw](https://toyhou.se/6700069.nincompooppaw): mediumhaired ginger spotted tabby with light amber eyes  
[Malarkeypaw](https://toyhou.se/6700054.malarkeypaw): mediumhaired cream spotted tabby molly with ilght green eyes  
[Colgate](https://toyhou.se/7433802.colgate): shorthaired solid black tom with a twisted paw and amber eyes  
[Mouthwash](https://toyhou.se/7433821.mouthwash): shorthaired solid black molly with blind yellow eyes  
[Toothbrush](https://toyhou.se/7433857.toothbrush): shorthaired black molly with low white and amber eyes  
[Toast](https://toyhou.se/7433867.toast): shorthaired black and white molly with yellow eyes

**Magicians**  
[Rustwhisper](https://toyhou.se/7434015.rustwhisper): longhaired brown and gold tortoiseshell with blue eyes

**Clowns**  
[Lionkit](https://toyhou.se/6699960.lionkit): mediumhaired ginger classic tabby tom with green eyes  
[Lilykit](https://toyhou.se/6699974.lilykit): mediumhaired cream classic tabby molly with amber eyes  
[Karatkit](https://toyhou.se/7434030.karatkit): longhaired ginger classic tabby molly with low white and green eyes  
[Meatkit](https://toyhou.se/7434039.meatkit): shorthaired seal mink point with green eyes and little fangs  
[Velvetkit](https://toyhou.se/7434050.velvetkit): shorthaired solid lilac and white molly with curled ears, a bobtail, and brown eyes

**Musicians**  
[Ancientpower](https://toyhou.se/5730197.ancientpower): shorthaired cream lynx point with blue eyes  
[Puffball](https://toyhou.se/5730389.puffball): mediumhaired solid gray tom with copper eyes  
[Steelwing](https://toyhou.se/5729802.steelwing): shorthaired black and white tom with green eyes

**Deceased**

_Cirque de Étoile_  
[Seelia](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Javanese_cat.jpg): shorthaired black lynx point Javanese molly with orange eyes  
[Yonteph](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/634898327686873089/634898562508914699/norwegian-forest-cat-2751709_1280.jpg): longhaired back mackerel tabby with low white and yellow-green eyes  
[Iceheart](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRMIVqo9TONaF7FAoJe5GR3w6dt3K8A-GK93h5u2P1D4LlU5Mkl): mediumhaired black classic tabby with low white and gray eyes  
[Silentkit](https://toyhou.se/5730348.silentkit): shorthaired black mackerel tabby molly with green eyes  
[Claw](https://toyhou.se/5729994.claw): mediumhaired black mackerel tabby molly with low white and yellow eyes  
[Poisonfang](https://toyhou.se/5730076.poisonfang): shorthaired black mackerel tabby with dark brown eyes  
[Spearmint](https://toyhou.se/7433845.spearmint): shorthaired solid black tom with amber eyes  
[Flareblitz](https://toyhou.se/5729723.flareblitz): shorthaired ginger mackere tabby tom with yellow eyes  
[Bracketpaw](https://toyhou.se/5730298.bracketpaw): shorthaired black broken mackerel tabby tom with low white and orange eyes  
[Lilyfrost](https://toyhou.se/5730102.lilyfrost): shorthaired black broken mackerel tabby molly with low white and brown eyes

_The Freak Show_  
[Mary](https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2015/12/01/09/28/scottish-fold-cats-1071855_960_720.jpg): shorthaired Scottish Fold silver ticked tabby molly with yellow eyes  
[Cottonspore](https://toyhou.se/5729816.cottonspore): shorthaired ginger mackerel tabby tom with low white and yellow eyes  
[Calendulaclaw](https://toyhou.se/5730129.calendulaclaw): longhaired ginger mackerel tabby molly with yellow eyes

**Exiled**  
[Killfang](https://toyhou.se/7433920.killfang): mediumhaired ginger mackerel tabby molly with yellow eyes


	2. 000 - Cypress becomes Cypressstar

Cypress stumbles into the clearing early in the morning, and breathes out a sigh of relief at the sight. He wanders a little more into it, and smells the air. There's no recent scents of any other cats in the area, and he truly feels he can relax for the first time in days.

His paws feel raw from how long he's been walking along the Thunderpath, and being able to rest, even just for a little while, feels like an absolute blessing. He swings his head around, trying to get a proper look at the clearing despite the lack of vision in his left eye.

The sight of the metal tracks and little buildings make his breath catch in his throat, and he almost bolts at the sight of them. However, being frozen in place for those few moments allow him to scent the air again, and he can physically feel the panic leave his body at the lack of any twoleg scent. It's clearly been abandoned.

_Just like me_ , he can't help but think, before giving a small shake of his head.

Slowly Cypress makes his way forward, and it takes him a bit longer than he thought it would to get to the tracks. This place is a lot bigger than he thought it was, but that might also just be the lack of depth perception speaking.

The metal tracks are very large, and broken in a few places. It looked like there was two different tracks from further away, but it's clearer now that he's closer that it was once all one. Between the two clear parts are a few broken pieces scattered around, with plants grown over them to where it's not at all noticeable that they're there unless you're looking for them.

Near the larger patch of tracks are a few little metal things that kind of look like the weird plastic mouse that was connected to his old twoleg's portable light box. However, these ones seem to be gutted, and are large enough for a few cats to sleep in them. They're actually kind of nice.

Looking back up, Cypress mentally notes that there's three different buildings, and they all vary in size and shape.

Heaving out a sigh, he makes his way towards the smallest one. It only looks big enough to fit maybe one cat inside, and Cypress jumps up to the little door cautiously. There's a weird metal thing that's half way down, and he awkwardly shoulders it up higher so he can look into it better, but slips a little. Cypress lets out a fearful yowl as he almost falls face first into the booth, his claws that're dug into the wood just barely keeping him up.

Once he calms down enough to stand back up properly on the little ledge of the opening, and looks down into it. It actually looks pretty cosy, with some leaves down on the floor of it. There's also another little ledge about half way down that'll could make it easy to get back up.

Not to make any decisions yet, but Cypress is definitely making a mental note to claim this one as his home.

Jumping back down to the clearing, he begins making his way toward the largest building. It seems so large, and when he's standing at the entrance, Cypress can barely see anything within it.

Making his way inside, the first big thought Cypress gets _is this is much bigger that I thought it was._

It practically seems to be going on for forever, and the path isn't even properly straight. It's a long, winding path, and there's lots of little rooms off to the sides. Most of them have broken down boxes and various twoleg things, and Cypress makes a mental note to try and find places to put them at a later time.

The largest room is bare of any boxes, and is covered in cobwebs. There's also, weirdly, a few plants growing inside, and when he approaches them, he sees a few holes in the floor of the building that allowed the plants to grow through on the inside. It's actually pretty cool.

After what feels like hours Cypress finally finds the other entrance of the building. He gives a small hiss and recoils at how bright it is outside, and squints his eyes against it. His eyes had gotten so used to the lack of light in the building, that the bright light of the sun has thrown him right off.

Rubbing at his eyes a little with the back of a paw, he then slowly begins making his way over to the last building.

He jumps up to the ledge on the side, and peeks into the building. This one has a similar metal thing across it, except it seems to be kind of broken. It's tilted, and has fallen down over one half. He bats at it a few times, but it doesn't seem to be budging. Hopefully it won't fall and crush him or lock him in. That'd really suck.

The inside is the same as the little booth, with lots of leaves and a few spider webs lining the inside. It'll definitely need to be cleaned out sometime, but that can always be done another time. There's also a lot of little ledges along the inside, where twolegs probably put things. Kind of like how his own twolegs used to collect weird shay things and put them on little shelves that they'd put into their home.

Jumping back down, Cypress finally makes his way towards the last thing in the clearing. Back towards the metal tracks, there's a long metal snake that lays there. Maybe more like some kind of bug, since it has little black legs up on the top. He crouches down near where he assumes the had would be, and finds it to be cleaned out kind of like the little metal mice. All of it's little parts seem to be the same, and so he backs away.

Cypress isn't willing to put up with whatever might possibly be inside this big metal snake's pieces.

So, with a small yawn, Cypress makes his way to the opposite side of the clearing from where he came in from. He walks for a bit, looking for something to hunt.

He tracks after a rabbit for a while, waiting for the perfect chance to pounce. When he finally does, he misses, and lets out a hiss as he moves to rush after it. However, his attention is stolen by the little pond he's managed to stumble across. It's rather small, and doesn't look like it's at all deep, but he still feels wary of it all the same.

He approaches it slowly, and dips a paw into it. The water seems a lot cleaner than it should be, practically crystalline as it perfectly reflects the sky above and now Cypress' face. However, once his paw hit the surface, it began rippling and shifting, and Cypress swears that there's another face next to his. He whips around, but there's no one there.

He looks back, and now there's even more reflections. There's many cats around the little pond, but all of them seem to be mostly transparent; the sky clearly seen through their faces. They seem to shine, and suddenly the sky seems so much darker. There's stars clearly reflected in the water, and they begin to move, swirling through the water too fast for Cypress to be able to catch with his eye, and then next thing he knows everything is black.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

_Cypress stumbles to his feet, groggily whipping his head around to try and see where he is. It takes a few moments, but he soon remembers the weird pond. Looking around, it seems that he's absolutely nowhere near the pond._

_"Relax. Everything is alright." comes a soft voice from behind, and Cypress turns around as quickly as his paws will take him. Standing before him is a large Javanese cat, with glowing orange eyes. She appears to be transparent, and her fur looks like it's made of starlight. It's quite beautiful, if he's being honest._

_"Who are you?" Cypress demands, and simply gets a soft chuckle in response._

_The molly comes closer, and Cypress instinctively takes a few steps back as she does. This makes her pause, and has a moment to be offended that she's rolling her eyes at him before she speaks up again._

_"My name does not matter; do not concern yourself with it. I am just one of many who reside here in the Cirque de Étoile, and we've been waiting a long time for your arrival."_

_Suddenly, there's more cats than Cypress can possibly count. They seem to just appear out of nowhere, their forms all varying in transparency but all equally look made out of starlight as the first. It's overwhelming, and Cypress finds himself wishing he'd wake up._

_A chuckle comes from his left, and he wildly whips his head in that direction in order to see who's laughing at him with his good eye._

_"Always one for the dramatics, you are." his gaze is fond when Cypress finally sees him, and it's aimed at the cat that spoke before. This cat is is even bigger than she is, and from how fluffy he is Cypress is pretty sure he's a Norwegian Forest Cat. When the tom finally looks towards Cypress, he can't help but feel a bit warm and glances away, nose scrunching up as he does._

_"We're Cirque de Étoile, and you're who's going to build a life in the ruins of that old twoleg amusement park."_

_Cypress looks up at that, eyes wide and startled. Him?_

_"I-I don't think I understand. Build a life here? Like, what--" he's cut off by a scoff to his right, and he glances at this other cat out of the corner of his good eye. She's a Maine Coon, and despite her soft appearance, her eyes are dark and glaring._

_"Are you sure this is who's going to found KeyClan? He doesn't seem very capable." her tone makes it sound like Cypress is beneath her; like he's just some worthless piece of prey she wouldn't even consider eating. It makes him feel useless, makes him feel weak, and so he puffs out his chest and gives a small growl._

_"I'll have you know I'm very capable, little miss sour puss." he turns his nose up at her, ignoring her offended snarl, and turns back to the Javanese cat. "Please, explain more? I don't really understand what you're saying here, but I'd like to."_

_This seems to please her, and the molly moves towards him again. This time, however, he doesn't step back. He watches as she approaches, going practically cross-eyed as she gets right up in his face._

_"Your determination is admirable, Cypress. I shall give you the knowledge you seek, and help guide your paws as best I can along your journey." she touches her nose to his, and there's suddenly so many thoughts entering his mind. Thoughts of how Clans work, about how the Ringmaster will always be known with a '-star' added to the end of their name. He sees a vision of the clearing full of other cats, weaving in and out of the buildings and the metal mice to interact. They all seem so happy, and Cypress really hopes that this vision comes true._

_Distantly, he hears the molly's voice once again. It sounds softer, more distant, but Cypress can't manage to open his eyes._

_"It's time for you to wake up, young Cypressstar. You have a lot you need to do."_

_And then everything goes black once again._


	3. 001 - Enter: Jingle Bell and Weasel

Humming a tune his twolegs used to listen to under his breath, Cypressstar sits atop the highest point of the metal tracks. His tail softly flicking around below. It's so freeing up here, where he could fall at any possible moment.

He looks down, and for a few dizzying moments images of tumbling down come to mind. It makes him feel small, and it's humbling.

Sighing softly, he gets up to his feet, and nimbly makes his way back down the tracks to the ground. He shivers a little at the sudden gust of wind that goes by, but is quick to shake it off as he heads towards the woods at the edge of the clearing. He really needs to start gathering some food, and should probably scope out his territory while he's at it.

Some leaves crumble under his paws as he walks under the trees, and it brings fond memories to mind. Memories of simpler times; of times when all he had to worry about was when his twolegs would come home from wherever it was they went to refill his food dish.

The memory quickly sours as the mental images shift and warp to cruelly remind him of how his twolegs one day just never came home. How his dish was never again filled despite him waiting for an entire week for their return. He fled the twoleg Clan after that, hissing and swiping at any twolegs foolish enough to try and approach him as he did.

He squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head a little to try and physically shake away the thought, but then there's a sudden noise of a twig snapping to his right and he lunges at it with a snarl.

A scared screech reaches his ears, and it sounds too feline for it to have been some foolish prey. It makes him freeze, and he stares down at the wide, terrified eyes of the kit under his paws with wide eyes of his own. They continue to stare at each other for a few moments, both breathing erratically as they struggle to realize what just happened.

Scrambling off of the poor thing, Cypressstar flattens his ears, eyes glancing away from the little molly for a second before looking back at her.

"Ah, sorry. I was caught up in my head. I didn't mean to attack you like that."

The molly is silent for a few more moments, and Cypressstar has the bitter thought of how that snarky Cirque de Étoile cat was right; that he wasn't the right cat to be Ringmaster.

That thought is quickly pushed aside when she finally speaks up. "Oh, no! No, it's quite alright. I shouldn't've been sneaking up on you to begin with, uh, sir! Though, I am a little shocked you didn't hear me coming. I mean," she stops talking for a moment, and reaches up a paw to bat at the little bells around her neck. And wow, yeah, Cypressstar absolutely should've heard her coming. They're pretty loud. "but it's okay! Everyone gets caught up with thinking sometimes! My mama used to do the same thing."

Cypressstar honestly doesn't hear the latter half of what she has to say, and instead is very much focused on the little bells. They're attached to a little silky string that's tied up around her neck, and it's clearly the work of twolegs. Is she also from the same twoleg Clan as him? Was she also abandoned like he was?

"Oh no, I wasn't abandoned, sir! I jumped out of the monster when we were on the hot black path, and then I couldn't figure out how to get home, and then I found you!" Ah, he said that all out loud, didn't he?

"You did, yes. Uh, I'm Jingle Bell! What's your name?"

Cypressstar sighs softly, ears flattening against his skull. Not having another cat to speak to for so long really isn't healthy, if his 'speaking out his thoughts' thing is anything to go by. "I'm Cypressstar. It's nice to meet you, Jingle Bell."

The little molly practically beams at his response, and her purr cuts off whatever she was trying to say next. It's adorable, and Cpyressstar awkwardly smiles back, before reaching out to gently bat against the bells around her neck.

"You'll need to take these off if you want to get any better at being able to sneak around." his tone is soft, practically teasing, and he gives a small laugh at her pout. Getting up to his paws, he turns back to the camp, his tail flicking behind him as he does as if he's beckoning her. "Come on now, I live around here. You're free to stay if you'd like." He really hopes, probably selfishly, that she will stick around instead of trying to find her family.

"Yeah! That'd be great!" Jingle Bell cheers, bouncing on her toes in a little circle around him in pure excitement. Cypressstar nods, and then they're off.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It's a few days later when a small Abyssinian cat stumbles across the clearing of KeyClan. Her wide golden-amber eyes scan over all the metal and the buildings with curiosity, and in her excitement she doesn't notice that there's already two cats here.

Her dainty paws carry her over to the toppled over metal snake, and she curiously crouches down to crawl into the one that she naturally assumes is the head, rubbing herself against the smooth metal of its skull with a morbid fascination.

Crawling back out of it, she then freezes as she meets the strange orange gaze of the large cat in front of her. He looks very intimidating with his thick, fluffy coat, and she slowly begins moving back into the skull.

However, the tom simply sits. There's a rumble of laughter that comes from him, and it makes her flatten herself more against the ground with a pout.

"You're cruel, you know that?" she whines, finally realizing just who's in front of her. She's seen this tom in her dreams, and a pretty Javanese cat told her the other night that she was to seek him out and help him start a Clan. Which, by the way, was a wild dream.

"You're one to speak, sneaking into my home and walking around like you own the place. Just who are you, anyways?" his voice is a lot softer than Weasel had expected, and it soothes her nerves a little bit. But only a little! No tom would be buying _her_ over with a stupid velvet voice like that.

"I'm Weasel, and you must be Cypressstar, yes?" as expected, her words don't even make him flinch. Guess the weird star cat in her dreams wasn't lying when she said he'd be expecting her. Then again, that probably also explained why he hadn't attacked her or anything yet. Sighing softly, Weasel makes her way out of the metal skull and then hops up on top of it, settling down with her tail draped over her paws as she looks down on him.

He doesn't even seem intimidated by this, and Weasel must admit she'd impressed. Her attention is easily brought away from him in a single moment, and her ears perk up at the sight of the little molly that's appearing around the big building nearby. "Oh, she didn't tell me you already had someone else here! What's your name, darling?" she questions, jumping off the metal snake to quickly approach the little molly.

It's clear she spooks the little Juggler, as she gives a squeak and scrambles past her towards Cypressstar to hide behind his bulky form. This makes Weasel pout a little bit, but then again she is a stranger, so it doesn't sting as much as it probably would otherwise.

"I don't know who this she it is you' mention, but Jinglepaw has been here just since yesterday." Weasel makes a mental note of his hesitation on her name, and remembers the words of the weird star lady cat about how in Clans cats usually go by specific naming schemes. This Jinglepaw was probably only recently named that, probably even just today, and Weasel decides quickly that she's not a fan of adding another part to her name.

"The strange star cat! She came to me in a dream and told me how to get here, and that I was supposed to help you with starting up this 'KeyClan' thing. Also, I'm not adding another part to my name like you two probably did. I doubt your dame's named you 'Cypressstar' and 'Jinglepaw', and those certainly aren't the kind of names a twoleg would give you either. And I will _not_ be conforming to this weird naming thing."

She fully expected some kind of complaint. Anything from a whine of 'please' to a physical attack from the large cat before her. Instead, Cypressstar throws back in head in a laugh, and it startles her. Why is he laughing?

"Of course, that's fine." Wait, what? "I don't really see any need to force Cirque de Étoile's strange naming rules, outside of being named Ringmaster. If you'd like to stay just Weasel, that's perfectly fine with me."

Jinglepaw nods from behind him, poking her head around just enough to be seen. "Yeah! My name was Jingle Bell, and Cypressstar gave me the choice of keeping my old name or changing to this! I thought it would be a fun kind of change, so I did, but it's super cool you want to keep your name!" she then bounds out from behind him to approach Weasel, and the older molly feels her chest swell with affection at the adorable little molly before her.

"Well, Jinglepaw, Cypressstar, Thank you so much." she's absolutely not tearing up, and will absolutely deny what these two liars have to say about it later.

It's good to be home, she thinks, as she finally feels herself relax.


	4. 002 - New challengers approach

The wind shakes the little building where Cypressstar has made his home, and awakes the tom. He stretches out along the floor of leaves and moss, yawning loudly, before making his way up to the ledge about half way up and shoving open the little metal slider.

Glancing down, he watches curiously as Weasel shimmies her way out of the metal snake, before trotting her way out to the woods. It's strange, but it doesn't really bother him. After all, he can't micromanage everything the strange Tamer does.

Another bit of movement from the corner of his eye catches his attention, and he watches fondly as the little Juggler Jinglepaw makes her way out of the metal mouse she's been living in. It doesn't look particularly comfy, but he hasn't heard any complaints from her about it; so he's sure it's fine.

Jumping down from the ledge, he makes his way over to Jinglepaw, settling down near her to lick at his chest fur for a few moments while he waits for her to wake up a bit more.

"Good morning, Cypressstar! What're we doing today?" the young Juggler asks, practically vibrating with excitement now that she's awake enough to do so.

With a small hum, Cypressstar gets back to his feet, and heads towards the edge of the clearing. "We're going to train, young one.now come on. I'm not going to wait for you." It's an empty threat, but he can hear her scramble to follow him regardless and it makes him smile.

"What are we doing? Are we hunting again? Hunting is fun!" For a cat so small, her voice is certainly loud. Cypressstar is certain that if there was any prey around, that they wouldn't still be here.

"No. Last time we did that, we only caught a single mouse; and that was purely by chance. You need to learn to be quieter before I take you hunting again." It was only a few days ago, but that doesn't mean he's going to refrain from teasing the poor thing about it.

Jinglepaw pouts as she follows behind him, and they stop at a much smaller clearing. Cypressstar found this a while back, when he was out for a little walk by himself. It's a nice little area, and will make for a good place to train Jugglers. Obviously, when it's too cold in Leafbare they'll probably just train in camp, but for now it's still nice enough to come here.

Stopping in the middle of the clearing, he then turns to Jinglepaw. "I'm going to be teaching you how to fight today. Before I teach you how to hunt, I feel it will be good to teach you to defend yourself. Now, take a stance. Like this."

Cypressstar then crouches a little, balancing his weight between all his paws. He watches as Jinglepaw attempts to copy him, and gives her a few moments before lunging forward.

Yelping loudly, Jinglepaw scurries out of the way, completely abandoning her stance in a blind panic. This makes Cypressstar sigh, and he gets back into stance where he lands; Jinglepaw shakily copies it again after a few seconds.

"Alright, let's try this again. I want you to hold your ground, or at the very least try to roll out of the way instead of just running."

She nods, and so he lunges again.

It takes a few tries, but eventually she manages to hold her ground, snarling as she's knocked down and managing to kick him in the belly to get him off her. It's definite progress, but it's starting to get dark by now.

"You did good for today. We'll pick up where we left off tomorrow" - Jinglepaw whines in complaint - "so make sure you get a full night's rest."

He then leads the way back to camp, listening as Jinglepaw seems to drag her paws as she follows.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"Hello! Is there anybody there!"

Weasel, completely startled, ends up knocking her head off the inside of the metal snake's head where she sleeps, and gives out a sleepy whine. After a few moments of waiting for her ears to stop ringing, she remembers what it was that woke her up.

Who's voice was that?

Flattening down, she shimmies her way out of the metal skull she calls home, and gives a small yelp as she ends up practically nose to nose with a strange siamese cat. A quick glance to the side shows that there's actually two of them, and Weasel slowly gets herself all the way out into the open. It's absolutely awkward, since the she-cat doesn't move an inch to give her any wiggle room.

"Um, hello?" she questions, which makes the one standing in from of her finally react.

Blinking a few times in quick succession, the she-cat takes a few steps back to stand shoulder to shoulder with the other siamese with her, and narrows her eyes.

"You. Are you in charge?" she demands, and Weasel frantically shakes her head. She nods, as if she was expecting that answer, before speaking again. "Then who is?"

Weasel perks up at that, and gets back to her feet and starts off towards the small building where Cypressstar lives. "Cypressstar is the Ringmaster here! We're a Clan. Do you know what Clans are? Oh, I'm Weasel by the way? What's your name?" Weasel talks practically a mile a minute, and it's clear she catches this stranger off guard.

"We do know what Clans are, yes." the tom responds, and wow his voice is much nicer than Weasel expected. He's a bit shorter than the she-cat and infinitely fluffier, and their voices sound a bit alike. Weasel wants to assume they're related in some way.

"I'm Syrinxecho, and this is Auletris. It's very nice to meet you, Weasel." he dips his head a little, and Weasel dips her back out of instinct. He's nice; she likes him.

There's a shrill sound of metal from above, and Weasel looks up to watch as Cypressstar shoulders the metal screen open to peer down at the trio. Auletris has her hackles raised, presumably from the sound of the metal, but otherwise she doesn't move.

"What's going on here? Who are you two?" He looks to be fully focused on the two siamese, and completely ignores Weasel. Which, rude.

Looking much calmer now, Auletris speaks up. "I am Auletris, and this is my brother, Syrinxecho. We've left our previous home, and have been travelling to find a new place to live. Would we be welcome here?" Auletris really knows how to cut right to the point, and Weasel would be absolutely lying if she said that wasn't mighty attractive.

Cypressstar blinks slowly as he takes this all in, before sighing softly and glancing to Weasel. She takes it as the sign it clearly is, and moves out of the way so he can jump down to join them.

"Alright you. Okay. Yeah, uh. Of course you can stay? I don't see why I'd kick you out. If I let _her_ stay" - Weasel is fully offended by that, and gasps - "then I see no reason to turn down either of you."

It's visible how the tension leaves both of their shoulders, and Weasel is glad that they can relax a bit now.

"Thank you. Thank you so much, Cypressstar. We'll do our best to be worthy of your kindness." Syrinxecho answers for the both of them, and then they're up and heading off towards the largest building, Cypressstar leading the way.

Weasel isn't necessary for this, and so she makes her way out of camp. Might as well make the most of this day and hunt for some herbs.


	5. 003 - I forgot to write the rest, but here's Blaze?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I was first writing this, I got distracted and ended up hitting enter way too early, and never got back around to fixing it. Maybe one day I'll fix it, but for now this is It

Huffing softly, Cypressstar waits for Jinglepaw to finish grooming herself before taking her out to patrol their border. She's gotten so good at combat last moon, and while he's sure she's mastered hunting by the end of their training session yesterday, he isn't going to risk it just yet. They could always use a few more days of training to make sure it goes smoothly.

He dips his head to the Siamese siblings as they head out of the large building to the woods, no doubt on their way to go hunting themselves. They've fit in rather nicely among the group of misfits gathered here so far, and he's proud of call them members of his Clan.

"I'm ready now!" Jinglepaw claims, bounding up to him with her chest puffed out in pride. She's still so small, and Cypressstar is certain she won't be very big when she's fully grown. It makes him chuckle softly, but he refrains from explaining and instead heads off in the opposite direction from where Auletris and Syrinxecho went.

"It's about time." he lightly teases, which makes the young Juggler laugh as well as she trots at his side.

The patrol goes over pretty well. It's mostly quiet, with Cypressstar occasionally explaining things to Jinglepaw about how scenting the borders go, and there doesn't seem to be any signs of anyone or anything near the borders either.

That is, however, until there is suddenly a large tom standing before them. He has a hard face, and it makes Cypressstar's hackles rise as he moves himself in front of Jinglepaw.

It looks like the tom's eyes soften when he notices Jinglepaw, but he regards Cypressstar warily and with his head ducked.

The two toms stand there for a few more tense seconds, just staring one another down. Their staring contest is soon broken by Jinglepaw letting out a sneeze, and then suddenly the tom is taking steps back while crouching low and baring his teeth.

Cypressstar is thoroughly startled by this, and takes a step back as well, ears flattened.

"I, uh. I'm sorry?" his voice is soft and cautious, and it makes the other tom freeze again, his eyes darting between Jinglepaw and Cypressstar wildly.

"Hey! It's okay! Cypressstar isn't gonna hurt you or nothin'! Promise." Jinglepaw pipes up, and Cypressstar is so thankful for his tiny Juggler right now, because her words seemed to pull all the fight out of the stranger.

The tabby sighs softly and it's clear that the tension has left his body as he slumps down on the ground. He looks,,,, sad.

Cypressstar continues to hesitate, and can barely move as he watches Jinglepaw prance up to the stranger.

"Hey, are you a'right? Come on, you can come back to camp with us! You look like you could use some rest. What's your name?"

"Blaze. My name is Blaze. I." he pauses, taking a deep breath, before looking up at Jinglepaw with a soft expression. Whatever this cat's problem is, Cypressstar is confident that Jinglepaw and all her tiny determination will get to the bottom of it.


	6. 004 - Enter: The only good couple

Syrinxecho trots just behind his sister, and keeps glancing over his shoulder at the tabby behind him. Flareblitz has settled into the Clan nicely over the last moon, but he's still a bit wary of the other Acrobat. He seems to cross all the time. In fact, Syrinxecho is sure he's only seen the old tom soften when he was around Jinglepaw. Which, okay that's understandable the little Juggler is a ray of sunshine.

He then pauses, noticing from the corner of his eyes how Auletris freezes up in front of him. He trusts his sister's cues with ever fibre of his being, and he just hopes that Flareblitz also catches on.

In the distance, he then hears a voice.

"You didn't have to smile at me; your grin's the sweetest that I've ever seen~"

Syrinxecho scrunches up his nose a bit. The singer has a nice voice, and it's clear to hear even from here how much affection is seeped in his voice. However, that doesn't calm him at all, because it still means that there's strangers in the territory; two at least.

Auletris raises her head high, and makes a beeline towards the singing. Syrinxecho gives a small sigh, before trailing after her without a word. He can hear Flareblitz grumbling behind him, but pays him no mind now. After all, he's almost always grumbling about something or other.

"You didn't have to offer your hand~" the singer continues, before he suddenly cuts off with a soft gasp.

Syrinxecho hurries past the bush that Auletris is standing near, and gets his first look at the strangers. The larger brown tabby is standing protectively in front of the other cat, and Syrinxecho can't really make anything out about who they might be.

"Who are you." Auletris demands, and Syrinxecho can't help but roll his eyes a little. His sister is good and being a leader, but she has no social grace.

The one in front bristles a little, and glances back and forth between the two of them cautiously. "I'm Sprout, and this is my mate, Mist. Who are you?"

Auletris seems to relax a little, and Syrinxecho lets out another small sigh before he moves up past his sister. It's clear from the tone of Sprout's voice that he doesn't mean any kind of harm, and pairing that up with the singing from earlier. Well, it's obvious that he's just been too enamoured with his mate to have even noticed he entered within their borders.

"Please forgive my sister, she's just on edge because you're within our Clan's borders." he stats, and he can see the shock go over Sprout's face as the other tom begins sniffing at the air to make sure that what he says is true.

Sprout then winces, and his entire body seems to droop as he realizes that it's true.

"Oh. My bad, I'm so sorry. We'll, uh. We'll get going, then, I guess."

He then moves to turn around, and Syrinxecho rolls his eyes before speaking up again. "It's okay, you're not in trouble or anything. In fact, if you'd want, you can come back with us to camp? I'm sure Cypressstar would love it if you'd consider joining us?'

Feeling more than hearing Auletris hiss at the suggestion, he completely ignores her as he keeps watching the pair. They seem to have an entire conversation by just looking at one another, before Sprout turns back to him with such a happy expression that Syrinxecho feels like they're already friends, instead of strangers who've just met.

"Are you sure? We'd love that! Which way is it? What's it called? What are your names? Can we get those weird double name thingies that you Clan cats have? They always sound so neat!"

Syrinxecho gives a startled laugh, and turns around to start heading back to camp. He walks beside Sprout the entire time, answering all the questions that he throws at him. Mist trails just behind them, and every so often Sprout stops to circle back to check up on her and them come back up to ask more. It's cute, and Syrinxecho really hopes the pair of them stick around.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Weasel hums softly to herself, tail flicking and waving behind her as she trots through the territory hunting for herbs. She'd met the two new cats a few days ago, and she absolutely adores them. Mist kept their original name, and has softly requested to be referred to as a neutral gender, instead of female.

Cypressstar seems to be struggling with it here and there, but Weasel took to it immediately.

Then there's the other one, Sprout. He'd stuck true to his wishes and took on a Clan name, and now goes by Grasswhistle. Weasel doesn't really understand why he chose such a weird name, but regardless she thinks it suits him. He's almost always around Mist, and either singing or whistling to them. It's super adorable, and Weasel almost walks right past the little patch of lavender while she's stuck in her thoughts about how a certain Siamese molly might react to those kind of things.

Regardless, she's happy that they seem to be planning on staying. She's caught on to how Flareblitz is a lot softer around Jinglepaw, and she really hopes that the kits Mist seems to be carrying can help crack him out of his shell even more.


	7. 005 - A drama queen approaches

Scowling in disgust, Mewlin lifts a dainty paw and gives it a harsh flick. The wet leaf doesn't budge, and she gives an offended snarl before flicking it even harder.

She hears a tired sigh come from behind her, but before she can snap at the alleycat she found while she was making her way down the road, he steps forward and reaches out to casually just knock the leaf off her paw.

It works, but that doesn't mean Mewlin isn't completely offended he would dare touch her without permission.

"Excuse me? Who gave you the _right_!" she demands, and he simply rolls his eyes before before trudging on past her, not caring whatsoever about whatever it is she's freaking out about.

Before she can go off on a rant about it, there's suddenly rustling to their left, and Mewlin whips around with a scandalised snarl as two tom cats appear from the bushes.

They both freeze at the sound of her snarl, and before they can do anything the alleycat - Steele, she thinks his name was - steps to them with what sounds like a relieved sigh. Which, rude?

"I have no idea who you are, but I am so glad you're here. I don't even care if you'e gonna kill us, I'd take that over _her_ complaining any day."

His voice is rough and it sounds like he's forcing it to sound deeper somehow, but Mewlin shoves that thought aside to instead be thoroughly offended at what he said.

"Excuse me? You have been insufferable this entire journey! First you almost attack me on the Black Path, and now you claim death would be better than being in my presence? You're the worst cat I've ever met!" Mewlin finishes this off with a decisive sniff and sticks her head up in the air dramatically, and hears Steele sigh heavily.

"Well, uh, we're? Not going to kill you?" The large kind of reddish-black tom says, and Mewlin decides immediately that she doesn't trust the sound of his voice.

"Are you two on your own?" The fluffy Siamese questions, and Mewlin doesn't move from her dramatic position, but at the thoughtful hum she hears she assumes Steele nodded. Traitor.

"Well, we. Uh, we're from a Clan, actually. We're not going to kill you, that's? Really mean? I'm Synrinxecho, and this is Cypressstar. If you want, you could come with us? Even if just to, like, rest on your journey?"

Mewlin cracks open an eye to look over at them, and notes with slight offence how Steele seems to sag completely, as if all the stress in his body had just disappeared.

"Alright, well. Come with us, then. What are your names?"

Cypressstar begins walking back the way he and Syrinxecho came from, and Steele is quick to follow him. Mewlin thinks it's stupid, but she simply gives a derisive sniff and trails after them as well.

"I'm Steele, and the drama queen back there is Mewlin. I met her when I was wandering, and she refused to leave me alone since."

Mewlin snarls at him, and he simply gives a laugh in response. It's a nice laugh, almost sounds like one of the nice instruments her twolegs used to play. She hasn't heard Steele laugh once over the last few days they'd been travelling, and she's a little shocked that it's such a pleasant sound.

Shoving that all out of her mind, Mewlin follows after the three toms in front of her, and finds herself lost in thought. She really hopes that wherever they're going to be staying is _clean._

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It's mostly quiet, at the KeyClan camp, when a honey smooth voice suddenly flows through the camp.

"Oh, Turpentine erase me whole. I don't want to live my life alone. I was waiting for you all my life~"

It's a fairly regular sound, Grasswhistle's serenading. If you listen closely you can hear Mist quietly humming along with him, or sometimes they sing the chorus with him. Their voices twining together as their words overlap.

The affection practically oozes from the sound. Or at least, it does most days.

Today, if you were to listen closely, you wouldn't hear Mist humming or singing along. Instead, you'd hear their muffled sobs. It would be clear that Grasswhistle's singing, today, is being used as a way to cover up the sound of Mist's sadness; a way to protect his mate's privacy over whatever it is that's upsetting them.

"Set me free, my, honeybee~" he carries on, and if you were to be listening extra close, you'd hear the way Mist's voice hitches and seems to choke, before their cries are even more muffled.

If you'd been close enough to see what was happening, you'd find Mist's face pressed firmly to Grasswhistle's side, while the tom leaned back against the inner wall of the Magician's building with his eyes full of love as he sung to his crying mate.

You'd see the way Mist's sides rose and fell frantically with how they were unable to catch their breath properly.

However, no one dares jump up to the opening of the Magician's den unless they strictly need one of the pair for something. They simply enjoy the sweet sound of Grasswhistle's singing, and don't focus enough to recognize the reason behind the lack of Mist's voice joining in.

They allow the pair their time to themselves, and it's really all they could ask for.

"Hello, goodbye, 'twas nice to know you, how I find myself without you. That I'll never know~"

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

When Auletris turns around at the clearing of Weasel's throat, the Tamer is suddenly struck with the realization that she has _no idea_ what to say to the other molly.

They stare at one another for a few moments, before the Acrobat rolls her eyes and snaps out a simple "what"

Weasel suddenly snaps back into focus, and her ears perk up as she looks Auletris in the eyes and beams.

"Are you tired?" she questions cheerfully, and at Auletris' confused look, she gleefully finishes her thought with "because you've been running through my mind all day!"

There's a tense moment where neither of them say anything, before Auletris' lip curls in distaste and she rolls her eyes.

"You're an idiot, I sincerely hope you realize this as a fact." she simply states, and Weasel feels her entire body deflate. She thought that was a pretty good one!

Pouting, Weasel sits down where she is, her tail curling over her paws as she looks up at the Siamese. She's still not getting any other response, and because of it her pout gets more pronounced.

Auletris inhales deeply, and then suddenly turns around and marches off. It makes Weasel want to yell after her, makes her want to chase her down and try some other stupid line, but Weasel knows when to give people space. It's obvious that was a stupid one, and she's going to think extra hard to make her next attempt a success. Maybe she could ask Syrinxecho for some kind of tips as to what Auletris finds funny?

Actually, that's a _brilliant_ idea, and Weasel quickly scrambles to her paws and take soff lik a bullet to the large building where the Acrobats live. Oh, this is gonna be _purrfect._


	8. 006 - Is that a plot I smell?

No matter how far back he tries to remember, he can't seem to remember having a name. He's been called lots of strange things by twolegs, and even by the other loners he's hang out with.

Tubbs. Sunny. Chicken.

He's never been able to give an answer when anyone asks him his name. He'll make something up, sometimes, but then someone else will show up and call him by something else, and then the illusion is shattered.

Socks. Storm. Dagger.

So here he stands, before this strange cat who calls himself Cypressstar, finding himself at a loss for words.

"What's your name?"

Cypressstar's voice is soft, and it soothes some of his worries. It makes him feel calm and relaxed, and he feels he can truly trust this stranger. However, the question is making him almost panic.

_worthlessemptysearchinghatred_

"I-"

_SCREAMINGLOCO_

"I don't, have one. I guess."

This makes Cypressstar frown, and he flinches back on instinct. He's scared of how Cypressstar will react. After all, everyone has a name, don't they? Even if they don't have one that their parents gave them, everyone at least has a name that they can choose for themselves. A name they can be comfortable with.

He doesn't.

Cypressstar smiles at him, and it throws him off. Why is this stranger smiling at him like it was an answer he expected? Why isn't he casting him out, or calling him a liar?

"You can choose a name, if you'd like? I was just Cypress before coming here, and others have changed or picked their own names as well. Jinglepaw used to be Jingle Bell. Flareblitz was Blaze, Grasswhistle was Sprout, and Steelwing was Steele. You don't have to go by the name you used to have; you're welcome to go by whatever you want, here."

He can feel the tears tracking wet marks down his cheeks, but he can't seem to make them stop. He shakes his head, almost frantically, and feels almost sick at the pitying look on Cypressstar's face. He doesn't deserve such kindness for being so stubborn.

"No, I. I've never had a name."

Cypressstar simply nods, and it takes everything in him to not start crying even harder, to not let his shoulders shake with the force of his silent sobs.

"If you'd like, I can give you a name? You can keep it, it'll be yours."

Cypressstar's words make him choke a little and sudden his sobs are no longer silent. He curls over himself, pressing the top of his head to the ground with enough force to grind his teeth together as he tries to get his tears under control.

He tries to nod, and for a few moments he thinks Cypressstar can't tell, but then he's speaking up again.

"How about Cottonspore?"

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Weasel hums happily to herself as she begins trotting back to camp, the freshly picked feverfew and mint wrapped in leaves held safely between her teeth. It's been a really nice day, a really nice moon so far, really. Everyone seems happy, an so Weasel is happy. She was really hoping to find something that could be helpful for when Mist finally kits, but oh well.

She's so happily caught up in her thoughts, that she doesn't notice the stranger approaching her until they quite literally walk into her.

Yelping in surprise, Weasel drops the bundle of herbs from her jaws and takes a few steps back. The strange tom winces, and Weasel watched with an absent fascination as he gets the herbs back into a nice little pile so it will be easy for her to pick back up.

There's a movement between his front paws, and Weasel's attention immediately snaps to the little kit that's there. She's batting at his paws as he works on gathering up the herbs, and Weasel lets out a soft "cute" without thinking about it.

They both snap their heads up to meet her eyes; the tom looking amused and the kit looking quite spooked.

"I'm so sorry for surprising you like that, miss. I was trying to call out to you, but you seemed deaf to the world, so it was the only thing I could think of." the stranger informs her, and Weasel melts a little bit at how nice his voice is. Why can't everyone in KeyClan be as nice in both personality and voice as this guy?

Shaking her head, Weasel beams at him as she takes a few steps forward so she can recollect her herbs off the ground easily. "Ah, sorry about that! I'm Weasel! Who're you two?"

The kit then bounds forward, her little chest puffed forward as she looks up at Weasel with the happiest look in her eyes Weasel has ever seen.

"I'm Wishkit! An' this is my daddy, Swiftwind! You don't have a Clan name, but you smell like a Clan. Do you live around here?" The little kit has fully left Swiftwind now, and is winding around between Weasel's paws as she talks, like she's trying to figure out Weasel's whole life story by sniffing at her paws. It's actually pretty cute, if she's being honest.

"I am, yeah! KeyClan is just a bit further this way. Are you guys from a Clan?"

Swiftwind seems to droop a little bit, before he perks up just as fast as he seemed to crash. "Used to be, yeah. Just the two of us now, though! Not sure where all the others wound up." his gaze is soft and fond when he looks at his daughter, and if Weasel wasn't so gay she'd probably have fallen for him right then and there.

"Well, I mean, you're welcome to come with? You can talk to Cypressstar about maybe staying!" Weasel happily tells him, before picking back up her bundle of herbs and heading towards camp, hearing them trot after her and feeling her chest swell with pride. She really hopes they stay.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Auletris sighs heavily as he leaps up to the entrance to the Magician's den. Her face is as deadpan as it could possibly be as she stares down at the two already in here, and feels her eye twitch.

Mist looks up at her with a pleading expression, and honestly if it weren't for that she'd've jumped right back down and left without a second thought. As it is, she gives a heavy sigh, and makes her way down to try and help Mist survive today's Mewlin Attack.

"Auletris! About time you got here, Mist's been a horrible conversational companion thus far. You're much better at having opinions and _caring_ about things."

Mewlin is facing towards Auletris, and so she misses the way Mist's lips curl up in a silent snarl at her words. However, Auletris can see Mist perfectly fine, and it takes a lot of effort to not burst into laughter at it.

"I'm sure they're just tired, you drama queen. They are pregnant, remember. I'm sure Mist's just tired." she claims, and feels her heart flutter a little at how thankful for it Mist looks. She'd be hard pressed to admit it, but Auletris sincerely loves Mist. Not in the same way Grasswhistle does, of course; more like they're her older sibling.

Mewlin sniffs derisively at that, but doesn't offer any other complaints, and so Auletris takes this as a win.

Settling down next to Mist, Auletris props her head up on the Magician's back to look up at Mewlin when she finally turns back around to be able to look at them while holding conversation.

"So, what's this meeting about, again?" Auletris asks, her tone portraying how bored she is already, and it's like she opened the floodgates.

"Everything! It's so cold here; how do you live out in the wild without any kind of central heating? My twolegs would be having a heart attack if they knew the cruel living conditions of this place. Also, I found a _spider_ in my fur this morning. A SPIDER! It was horrible, and Steelwing just laughed at me! _He laughed!_ He's so rude, it's ridiculous."

She keeps going off, switching as fluidly from one complaint to another as a frog moves from water to land. The thought almost makes Auletris laugh, and she inconspicuously tilts her head to press her muzzle into Mist's fur. She's absolutely certain that the Magician can tell she's trying not to laugh by the way she's breathing, but as long as Mewlin doesn't figure it out, then she doesn't really care.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

_It's darker than Cypressstar remembers, when he wakes up. He looks around, not bothering to get up yet, and notes with a tired hum that the Pool of Stars is nowhere to be found; just like the last time he came here._

_It wasn't as scary, getting to Cirque de Étoile, as it was the first time. He remembers the visions of someone being behind him, and how much fear he felt, and gives a small shiver. Yeah, no, this was much easier._

_"Hello again, Cypressstar."_

_The voice is familiar at this point, and he pushes himself up to a sitting position to greet the Javanese molly from the last time. He dips his head to her, and her eyes flash a sickly orange for a few moments before she nods back at him and settles down beside him._

_"KeyClan is growing well, under your leadership. I knew you'd get the hang of it." her voice is quiet and soft, and Cypressstar can't suppress the shiver that goes down his spine from it. She sounds proud, but she also sounds angry, in some way._

_"I. Yeah. I haven't appointed a Trapeze Artist yet, because there's so many good candidates. But I'm glad that I haven't failed, like that sour puss claimed I would."_

_He, of course, is referring to the very rude Maine Coon he also met that first day. She might as well had told him to her face that she wanted him to fail, and he honestly was a little bit hoping to be able to rub it in her face personally, with this visit._

_The Javanese molly nods, and knocks her shoulder against his gently. He notes that she hasn't looked back at him since she's sat down, but he doesn't let it get to him. She's probably been dead a long time, and he doesn't really expect dead cats to have the best manners._

_"You should, and hopefully soon. By the end of next moon, at least. I fear something happening, and I don't want you to be at all unprepared."_

_Cypressstar scrunches up his nose, but when the turns his head to ask her what that means, she's no longer beside him. He feels cold, despite there not being any kind of wind, and when he looks back up there's suddenly a dark, crumbling building in front of him._

_Frowning, Cypressstar takes a few steps towards it. It's so strange, and he swears that nothing like this could possibly exist in Cirque de Étoile. It's quiet, eerily so, and he's honestly scared to even think of calling out into the darkness._

_"Hello?"_

_Of course, that doesn't stop him from doing it anyways._

_All of a sudden, it suddenly gets even quieter. He didn't think it was at all possible, but it somehow does. It's like he's lost all sense of hearing, and he's not at all afraid to admit that he's completely terrified right now._

_Suddenly there's a shape coming out of the shadows, and Cypressstar screams._

_He can vaguely tell that it's a Scottish Fold cat, and he thinks he hears her say something right before he slips out of this strange dream and back into the real world._

_"Come back soon, Cypressstar; the fun's just beginning."_

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Fox frowns as she stumbles into a strange clearing, and shakes herself almost violently. She's really hoping that all the leaves and cobwebs she walked into will just be shaken off, but she mostly doubts that's going to happen.

"Hey, who're you?" comes a voice from her left, and Fox whips around to be able to see the stranger with her eye. The other molly seems about her age, but she could also just be a bit small.

"I'm Fox. Where am I?" she questions, her voice soft and curious. She looks around the clearing a bit, and squints her eye at the strange weird metal path to the sky and the twoleg buildings. It smells overwhelmingly of cats here, so she's pretty sure there aren't any twolegs, but the sight of the buildings and metal are still making her a bit uncomfortable.

"Nice to meet you, Fox! I'm Jinglepaw, and this is KeyClan!"

Before Fox can open her mouth to say anything else, there's suddenly another voice, from behind her, and she gives a startled yelp before turning and backing up, trying in vain to keep them both in her line of sight.

"Jinglepaw, who's th- whoa, whoa, it's okay. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."

She doesn't exactly trust this large, strange tom, but seeing how Jinglepaw's face practically lights up, Fox thinks she can at least trust him to not kill and eat her insides. She shivers at the very thought.

"I'm-"

"Fox!" "A baby."

Jinglepaw and the new stranger talk at the same time, and Fox's face scrunches up in confusion. She isn't a baby, what is he talking about?

Jinglepaw, on the other hand, is currently now rolling on the floor, laughing heavily as the tom scuffs a paw on the ground in embarrassment.

"Sorry that, that was rude of me. I'm Cypressstar, it's very nice to meet you, B-Fox."

Fox's eye narrows at hearing him almost call her a baby, _again,_ but she doesn't comment on it.

"Alright, well, what is this, KeyClan? What does that mean?"

It feels like a mistake, asking this, because soon after she's being dragged around the whole clearing, in and out of buildings, and across the weird metal path. Cypressstar and Jinglepaw seem to talk nonstop, practically tripping over one another's words as they show her around. She's got half a mind to ask if they're related, but she also feels like that's maybe rude, and keeps the question to herself despite her curiosity.

It's almost dark by the time they finally finish, and Fox is pretty much dead on her paws. She's guided over to the weird metal mouse on it's side that Jinglepaw apparently lives in, and is quick to curl into a corner of it and is asleep almost instantly.

However, not before she hears one more thing.

"I hope she stays. I wanna call her Babypaw."

The sound of Jinglepaw's laughter lulls her to sleep, and if her dreams are full of cats cheering the name 'Babypaw', then no one needs to know.


	9. 007 - Plot paused for KITTENS

Humming a happy little tune under his breath, Grasswhistle excitedly makes his way to the strange little building that Mist and their new kits live in. He originally tried to sleep there with them, but it was made very clear very fast that that wasn’t the best plan.

Weasel had chased him out yesterday because he had gotten in the Tamer’s way, and he’s really hoping she isn’t there when he gets there. Mist wanted to name the kits today, and even though Grasswhistle will brave the Tamer’s glare to be there, he would really prefer if he didn’t have to.

Hopping up onto the ledge, he feels as if his heart swells ten times in size as he looks down at his beautiful mate and their tiny kittens. They’re mewling and squirming around on the soft floor near Mist’s belly, and Grasswhistle could probably die right now and be happy about it, because it’s the cutest thing he’s ever seen.

Luckily, Weasel doesn’t seem to be anywhere around, and Grasswhistle carefully makes his way down to settle himself at Mist’s back, and he places his chin on their shoulder to just watch the little bundles of fur and feeling like his heart is going to beat right out of his chest.

Mist gives an adorable little noise in greeting, and Grasswhistle can’t help himself from nuzzling into their neck and purring so loudly he wouldn’t be shocked that the entire camp could somehow hear it.

”Did you think of any names?”

Mist’s voice is soft and Grasswhistle almost misses their question, but it makes him puff up a bit to hear his mate ask _his_ opinion before giving their own. So, he pulls away from his nuzzling to look down at the little kits.

He can’t really tell them apart yet, since they all seem to look so similar, but there are some clear variations in size.

There’s this really tiny and extra thin little tom, who Grasswhistle is pretty sure is the runt. However, he seems to move faster than all the other kits, and honestly Grasswhistle doesn’t think he’s ever seen the little guy stop moving.

One of the little mollys is just a big wider than the runt, but just as small in height. She seems to have almost floppy ears, which is completely adorable, and even though all the kits seem to have sad little faces right now, hers seems almost sadder somehow.

There’s a little pair of two that look even more identical than all the others. They seem to stick close together, and Grasswhistle thinks that’s adorable.

There’s another molly, and she appears to be the largest of the litter. He’s also fairly certain she was the last born, and he gives a small wince at imagining how much it must’ve hurt Mist to bring that little girl into the world. He’s fairly certain he won’t be able to convince them to have another litter any time soon.

The last kid looks just the same as most of the others, and if almost any of the other kits had been the exact same size, he’s pretty sure they’d also be completely identical, like the other pair. This last one is a little tom, and Grasswhistle is just so in love with all of them that he has to stop himself from crying a little bit.

”I, uh, I was thinking maybe Pepper? For one? And maybe something like Energy for that runt there. He’s making me feel tired just looking at him.” His comment makes Mist give a little laugh, and Grasswhistle beams at the sound.

Pepper was his late sister’s name, and he’s completely sure Mist picked up on it immediately. He had felt them tense up after he said the name, and that’s why he had barrelled on to Energy. It wasn’t even a proper thought in his head; he had just rambled a little to make the atmosphere less tense.

Mist hums softly and leans back a little, and Grasswhistle shifts to keep them both in a comfortable position as they look down at the kits.

”Energizer, instead of Energy. The two that look the most alike, how about Claw and Fang?” Mist’s voice is soft, but Grasswhistle knows that they’re set on those names.

He gives a soft hum as a response, and now there’s only two kittens left.

”You should name one Pollen.”

Grasswhistle flinches back at Weasel’s voice, and looks up at the Tamer guiltily. She just rolls her eyes at him before making her way down to the floor, and he slowly places his chin back down on Mist’s shoulder. He can feel them laughing, and wisely chooses not to comment on it.

He blocks out most of what they talk about - it’s not information meant for him anyways, and there’s no way he’d remember it regardless - and next thing he knows he’s being woken up by a tiny paw shoving into his mouth.

Recoiling back, Grasswhistle blinks a few times as he glances down at the little kitten. They’re face down on Mist’s flank where his head just was, and he hears Mist softly scolding the kitten - Shadow, if he heard right - telling her off for bothering her father.

Just hearing Mist call him their father makes his fur stand on end, and so he curls back around his beloved mate, and he feels Shadow curl up under his chin just before he falls back asleep.


	10. 008 - The good at the bad

Cypressstar looks down at his Clan from the little perch of his den. The metal slider is closed behind him, and he stares out over those congregated below.

There’s Syrinxecho and Auletris, who have been his loyal Acrobats since the beginning. There’s the one eyed Babypaw, looking up at him with awe. Off to the back is Grasswhistle and Mist, their little kittens tumbling across their paws, and Flareblitz and Weasel both sitting nearby to keep the kittens over with their parents. There’s even Lilyfrost, the new Magician that he and his patrol found just a few days prior, sitting on Weasel’s other side - away from the kittens - trying to look like she doesn’t want to be here, but with her gaze clearly full of wonder for what’s about to happen.

He’s starting to feel a little nervous, but a quick glance down to where Jinglepaw is, and it feels like all his nerves are washed away in an instant,

”Cats of KeyClan, I welcome you to our first official meeting!”

He pauses for effect, and can’t help but feel warm at the way younger cats cheer. He notes that Mewlin looks especially displeased by this, and he just barely stops himself from laughing at her for it.

”I’m sure we all know why I’ve gathered you here today by now, but in case you don’t; today, there are a few changes in ranks for those among us! First of all, young Wishkit, may you step forward?”

Cypressstar gracefully jumps down from his ledge (something he only learned how to do after living here for 5 moons) and waits as the little kitten weaves her way through the Acrobats to join him up at the front.

When she’s finally up there, she looks up at him with so much hope and excitement that Cypressstar almost wants to cry. He still doesn’t believe that he deserves these kinds of looks, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t _want_ to earn that kind of respect.

”Wishkit, when you and your father joined our Clan, and I was so proud to know that he chose this Clan to help in raising you. I’ve watched you grow these last few moons with so much pride, and I’m honoured to finally name you a Juggler. From this day forth, you shall be known as Wishpaw!”

He pauses again here, and looks up to see Swiftwind cheering the loudest for his daughter. Cypressstar smiles, before turning his head and locking eyes with another Acrobat.

”Auletris, could you step forward?”

The siamese stands up from where she was pressed up against her brother, and comes up to stand proudly before Cypressstar, next to Wishkit, and he’s suddenly struck with the urge to tear up again.

”Auletris, you’ve been such a big help to KeyClan; you and your brother both. You’ve helped me build this Clan from the bottom up, and you’ve always made sure to keep me on track. I hope that you keep up that diligence, and pass on all your knowledge to this young Juggler.”

Auletris nods when he finishes speaking, before leaning down to gently touch her nose to Wishpaw’s. The two share a moment where they just lock eyes, before Auletris lifts her head back up.

”May Cirque de Étoile bless your training.”

The two nod at him, before heading back into the crowd. Auletris sits back next to Syrinxecho, and it’s clear how the larger tom nudges his sister with excitement. Wishpaw moves further into the crowd, sitting down next to her father. Swiftwind’s purring with so much pride that Cypressstar can hear it from here.

”Next, could I get Jinglepaw up here?”

His tone is soft, and when he locks eyes with Weasel, he knows that everyone picked up on it. Regardless, he watches as his own Juggler makes her way through the crowd, pushing away from where she was sitting with Babypaw, and narrowly avoiding stomping on Poisonfang’s tail.

When she’s standing there in front of him, Cypressstar almost finally sheds a tear. This young molly has come so far over the moons they’ve spent together, and he’d honestly be hard pressed to see her as anything other than a daughter at this point.

”Jinglepaw, you came to this Clan as Jingle Bell, and then became Jinglepaw, and I was honoured to train you for all these moons. You’ve shaped up to be a wonderful young molly, and you’ve always done your best to become the very best that you can be. I admire that, and I’m excited to see what you do with yourself as an Acrobat. From now on, you will be known as Jinglebee. Something similar enough to your birth name, but with enough of a change to make it original; to show that you’re now free to be whoever you want to be, to let go of your past."

When he’s done talking, he’s not all that surprised to see that Jinglebee is crying. He reaches out to gently press his forehead to hers, and can feel the way she shudders at her next inhale.

When he pulls away, Jinglebee is beaming at him despite all the tears rushing down her face. She whispers a small ”thank you” before she turns and weaves her way back into the crowd, and collapses at Babypaw’s side before pressing her face into the Juggler’s neck.

Smiling, Cypressstar looks back over the crowd.

”Swiftwind, can you come up here?”

The older tom gives a quick lick to the top of Wishpaw’s head, and then he’s making his way up to stand in front of Cypressstar, and even just from the way he holds himself as he walks, Cypressstar knows he’s made the right decision.

”Swiftwind, you’ve only been part of KeyClan for a few moons, but already you’ve managed to show me how dedicated you are to helping this Clan, and making a future for both yourself and your daughter here with us. I’d like to ask you to be the Trapeze Artist for this Clan. To walk along that fine line where you have to make the right decisions to keep everything working and not fall while doing it. I’d be honoured, if you’d agree to be my second in command to help KeyClan running smoothly.”

Swiftwind gives a kind laugh, and Cypressstar beams at the sound. He’d talked it over with Auletris over the last few days, because he’d been originally planning on giving the position to her. She talked him into considering Swiftwind for it, and he’s glad he let her do that. He can already tell that Swiftwind was the right decision, and he’s glad to have this tom in his Clan.

They briefly touch noses, and then Cypressstar turns and jumps back up to his ledge. Looking back down at the Clan, Cypressstar curls his tail around his paws before lifting his head high.

”May Cirque de Étoile smile upon these rank changes, and continue to watch over us! This meeting is now over!”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It’s been a relatively quiet morning. Or, well, as quiet as it can be with 6 tiny kittens that wake up at dawn trying to play while also trying not to wake anyone up.

So, no, it’s not actually that quiet.

Lilyfrost huffs softly, and lifts her head from where she had it tucked under a paw. All the kits go silent, and she gives a small laugh before getting up to her paws and climbing out of the den. She’ll leave them to Mist, and maybe if she sees Grasswhistle she’ll get the tom to go in there and entertain his kits so the poor Magician can sleep in a bit longer.

However, as soon as Lilyfrost is perched up on the ledge of the opening to the den, her lip curls back in a quiet snarl.

Looking around, her gaze finally settles on the owner of the scent wafting through the air. The ginger tabby stands there next to Cypressstar, her face all soft and kind looking as she - presumably - thanks him for letting her join, and Lilyfrost bites back a growl before jumping down and making her way over.

”Hello, Carrie. Didn’t think I’d see you again.”

Carrie doesn’t so much as flinch, but Cypressstar on the other hand is shocked into silence. His gaze flickers between the two, but before he can say anything, Carrie is turning to her and speaking.

”Why, if it isn’t _Lily!”_ the molly purrs, and Lilyfrost can feel every hair on her body standing on end.

”It’s Lilyfrost, now.” she cooly responds, and she almost preens at the twitch of one of Carrie’s eyes. She didn’t know the other molly for long when they first met, but Lilyfrost vividly remembers how much she butted heads with her. Honestly, she’s pretty sure it’s the reason why Carrie was eventually asked to leave.

”Oh, is that right? Well, I’ve also been given a Clan name from Cypressstar, here. He’s so generous, letting strangers like us into his Clan without question. I’m Calendulaclaw now. I know, quite a mouthful when compared to Carrie, isn’t it?” Her eyes are sharp, and Lilyfrost is confident that she didn’t give any physical indicators that show she’s shocked. After all, she already expected that Carrie - sorry, Calendulaclaw - was here as a new member of the Clan. So she’s already got one up on the molly.

”Ah, you know each other?”

Cypressstar’s voice, on the other hand, startles Lilyfrost. She honestly forgot the Ringmaster was still here.

She turns to him with a smile, and gives a nod. ”Oh, yes! I met Calendulaclaw back when I was a Loner. She came across my mate and I once, and stayed with us for a little while before setting off again. It’s been a while, and so I was a bit shocked to see her here.”

Calendulaclaw says something else, probably backing up Lilyfrost’s story, but she’s heard enough at this point. Quietly saying her goodbyes, Lilyfrost heads past them to the fresh-kill pile, ready to wash the taste of Calendulaclaw’s scent from her mouth.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

_It’s dark when Cypressstar wakes up. Or, he assumes he wakes up, but after looking around, it’s clear that he’s in a dream again. He tries to back up, and is met with what feels like a solid wall._

_Looking behind him, he feels his breath catch in his chest at all the eyes looking down at him from the windows. He slowly turns his whole body, and after a few moments of him just panting, someone steps out of the strange building,_

_It’s the same Scottish Fold he saw before, and he shivers involuntarily. He tries to take a step back, but his legs don’t appear to be working._

_”Welcome back, Cypressstar. I knew I’d be seeing you again.”_

_Their voice is shrill, and yet oddly soothing. Like the voice wants him to trust it, but every fibre of his being is screaming otherwise. This makes the strange cat grin, and Cypressstar wishes he’d really woken up back in his nest._

_”You’re building up KeyClan, right? I know you’ve been asking those from the Stars to bring you cats, but how about I help out? I could send you a few strong, brave ca--”_

_”No."_

_His voice takes even him by surprise, and the Scottish Fold’s mouth snaps shut. It makes him shiver, and Cypressstar slowly begins unsheathing and sheathing his claws, hoping the sensation will somehow wake him up and help him escape this strange place._

_Cypressstar can’t bring himself to look up, but it feels like the amount of eyes watching him has doubled. Maybe even tripled, if he’s being honest._

_”Now now, is that any way to treat someone that’s just trying to help out?” The Scottish Fold asks, and suddenly the silence explodes into laughter. Cypressstar can finally move his limbs, and he uses this ability to crouch down and slap his paws over his ears, and shutting his eyes as tightly closed as possible as he begins praying for something to wake him up._

_He can tell the stranger is still speaking, and they’re louder and more angry sounding now, but he can’t focus on anything other than the deafening laughter coming from all around._

_And then suddenly._

_It stops._


	11. 009 - F in the chat for Weasel

The little ginger tom hesitates, his eyes flickering back in the direction of the camp for a moment before settling back on the ginger molly in front of her. Her brilliant golden eyes don’t show any more emotion than they had the second before, and it makes Cottonspore’s skin crawl. He’s not sure if he likes this molly, but he’s not going to completely ignore her. Even if what she’s saying is completely insane.

”And no one will get hurt, right?”

She only laughs and gives him a grin.

It doesn’t make him feel any better, but he returns the smile all the same. She doesn’t seem all that dangerous, and isn’t setting any warning bells off in his head, so he gives a little laugh as well. It is contagious, after all.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

”Auletris! Auletris come back!” Weasel yells as she rushes towards the Acrobat, and she chooses to ignore the way she seems to sigh.

The little tamer is panting by the time she catches up to her. Damn Auletris and her long legs! The siamese has her ears flattened, and Weasel pouts a little bit before forcefully shoving her worry, and spits out the reason she chased the other down.

”I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to spring it on you, and especially not so suddenly! I’m going now!” Almost immediately after Weasel is rushing off, and she’s a little hurt that Auletris doesn’t call out, asking her to come back. She didn’t expect that to be a thing, though, so it doesn’t hurt as bad as she imagines it would’ve if she let herself hope like that.

Soon her paws are skidding across cold metal, and suddenly she’s crashing into a solid, fluffy body.

She takes the fall very gracefully, falling over onto her side and hitting her head off the floor, all while the fuzzy wall didn’t move a single damn inch.

Weasel looks up, defeated, right into the concerned blue eyes of Syrinxecho. They two of them stay like that for a few moments, Weasel looking up at the siamese with a defeated expression, and Syrinxecho looking down at her, his expression growing more concerned with each passing moment.

”Uh, hey, Weasel. What, um, what are you doing?”

”I am simply chilling, my dear Syrinxecho. Doing what the stars told me to, y’know. Yeah, got a cool vision from them last night. ‘You’re going to take a nap in a cold place’, they said. ‘You’re going to run into a fuzzy fucking wall and fall right on your face’, they said. Yup, just a standard little mini prophecy for how this day was gonna play out. Glad to know they’re always right, yeah?”

It’s almost painful, watching the different emotions flashing across Syrinxecho’s face as he tries - very valiantly, Weasel must say - to try and make sense of the word vomit that Weasel just spat up all over his paws.

”Well, they’re wrong about one thing.” Before she can open her mouth to ask what, she’s being rudely yanked up by teeth on the scruff of her neck. She swats at him, but Syrinxecho only chuckles through the mouthful of her neck, before letting her go and moving around to stand right up against her. ”I’m not going to let you sleep out here, you moron. Come on, we can go lay down in the acrobats den. Or even the magicians den, if you’d like more privacy.”

Weasel almost cries at the amount of kindness she hears just oozing from each and every word, but she leads the way towards the magicians den without another word. There are no Magians in KeyClan yet, and so the little room is almost as cold as the weaving halls of this whole building are. However, the key word, of course, _is_ almost.

”I told Auletris.”

She wasn’t planning on telling her best friend what happened so immediately after, but she knows Syrinxecho wasn’t going to ask, so might as well get it out in the open to begin with. She feels him freeze up for a moment, before there’s a rough tongue dragging over her ears and across the top of her head. Weasel huffs out a small laugh, and Syrinxecho playfully bats at her nose as he continues with the grooming. She knows by now that this is his way of processing what she’s said, and so she rests her chin on her paws, and lets him do his thing.

It feels like it’s been forever before he finally deems her clean enough, and just rests his chin on the back of her neck. A few more moments pass, and the the large tom is finally speaking up. ”I’m sorry, I know you weren’t ready for that.” and that’s the final straw.

Weasel chokes on a sob, and then suddenly everything is rushing out. Like the floodgates finally opened.

”I just - she looked _disgusted,_ Syrinx! Like-like she couldn’t even bring herself to l-l-look at me anymore! She ran out like I-I told her I murdered someone o-o-or something, instead of c-con-conf- told her I loved her! Syrinx, I don’t w-want her to ever l-look at me like that again! I don’t know what to do!” She’s wailing by now, and honestly, she’s pretty sure using this room for ‘privacy’ isn’t working very well, because she’s pretty sure every acrobat still in the building as a whole heard at least the latter half of what she was saying.

She feels Syrinxecho go back to grooming her, and it makes her sob even harder. He knows all too well what Auletris is like, being her brother and all, but he had been so sure when he was telling Weasel the other day that Auletris felt the same. She’s sure he’s feeling upset, knowing that he’s part of the reason the confession just popped up today during her talk with Auletris, but she doesn’t blame him at all. Though, she doesn’t know how to make herself stop crying long enough to reassure him, so she just turns her face into his fluffy chest, and cries harder into his fur.

Eventually she’ll be okay enough to get up, to go back to her own den and pretend like everything is fine, like she didn’t just ruin one of the best friendships she’d ever had. For now, though, she just lets herself cry it out.


	12. 010 - This turned out much softer than planned

The old cream point cracks open an eye, and feels the beginnings of a purr start at the back of his throat. At the door of the little room he has been living in for the last few days, stand some young cats.

He recognizes two of the cats - he thinks they were called Jugglers - from the patrol that he stumbled across in the woods. They both look young, but definitely not as young as the little tabbies that’re anxiously bouncing around at their paws.

Huffing softly, Ancientpower pushes himself up to show that he’s actually awake, and almost immediately the little kittens come barreling in to clamber over him, tripping over his paws and chasing his leisurely flicking tail. He looks up to the older cats, and they follow in sheepishly.

”So, who are all of you?” he can only confidently call Cypressstar and Weasel by name so far, but he has a feeling that’s going to be changing very soon with all these rambunctious kittens in the camp.

"I’m Babypaw!” One of the older cats that he doesn’t recognize is the one to answer him, and he smiles fondly as he tries to focus on looking her in the eye while she speaks. ”These are Wishpaw, Scarpaw, and Turtlepaw. The Clowns are Pollen, Pepper, Claw, Fang, Energizer, and Shadow.”

The little one-eyed tabby points to each cat as she speaks, but he’s not quite sure which is which between Claw and Fang, as well as Pollen and Energizer. They’re too close together, so her gestures could’ve been at any of them, but at least he’s got the jist of it. He nods, taking in all the new names before he looks back at the quad in front of him, and offers a small hum.

”As lovely as this visit is, is there a reason?”

Babypaw looks away in embarrassment, and another of the Jugglers - Wishpaw, he’s pretty sure - ends up speaking up for her.

”Well, back in my old Clan, sometimes the Elders would tell stories to the kits. We understand if you don’t want to, and will take the Clowns somewhere else to play, but I thought we’d maybe stop in and see you, first. At least, um, ask. If you had any stories to tell.” Wishpaw gets visibly more flustered with each word she says, and Ancientpower finally feels pity on her when she stutters off, and gives a playful roll of his eyes.

”I supposed I can tell you younglings a story.”

Ancientpower then proceeds to tell one of the more child friendly stories of his youth. He tells them about how his name used to be Cosmos, and about the gray kittypet he valiantly saved from his cruel twolegs. He tells them of how he spent so many moons visiting the tom, and learning of all the horrible things his twolegs did. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Shadow tearing up as he tells them about how the young tom didn’t want to leave his family behind, since his mother was pretty much on her deathbed, and his father didn’t have use of one of his front legs, and had his tail amputated.

He tells them of how scared the younger tom finally left on a day that Ancientpower wasn’t there, and when he came back the tom was nowhere to be found. There’s a chorus of sniffles when he ends the story on an ”I searched for many moons for him after that. I didn’t even leave the area until it was leafbare once more, and the last time I had seen him had been at the tail end of the last one. I’ve always tried to find him since, but at this point, there’s a good chance he’s long gone. I doubt a kittypet, especially one as badly treated as him, could’ve survived for the last 80 moons.”

All of them are crying. Even Pepper and Fang, who kept serious for so much of the story, can’t seem to stop the tears pouring down their faces. He gives a crooked smile, and looks at them all fondly. ”I apologize. I didn’t mean to tell such a sad story, it was just the first one that came to mind.”

Babypaw shakes her head, and smiles up at him, her one eye scrunched closed as tears cascade down her cheek. ”Don’t apologize, Ancientpower! It was a nice story, I’m sad you didn’t get to spend the last 80 moons with him. It’s clear you really loved him.”

His ears flatten in embarrassment, and he looks away with a wet huff. Honestly, now he’s going to cry.

He doesn’t say anything else, but it’s clear none of them need him to. The clowns are falling asleep where they sit, and it seems like the jugglers aren’t much better off. So, he moves back to the corner of the room where he’s made a little bed. After a minute or two he’s being surrounded by the warmth of the younger cats, and he slips into the first restless sleep that he’s had since he got here.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Mewlin’s lip curls up in distaste, but she jumps down into the Magician’s den regardless. Mist, Lilyfrost, and Toothpaste were all already inside, but so was Shadow. It’s clear that the little clown is sleeping, but that doesn’t make Mewlin at all inclined to accept or enjoy her presence.

”Just get _in_ ,” comes a voice from behind, and Mewlin almost falls right into the Magician’s den. She turns her head to snarl at the offending voice, but Auletris simply laughs before gracefully making her way down, and so Mewlin finds she has no chance but to follow.

She settles down the furthest away from Shadow, and ignores the eyeroll that Mist gives at the action. They’ve had their fight about this before, and so nothing’s going to come of it today, and so she chooses to ignore it.

Instead, she turns to Lilyfrost, who’s set to pop any day now. ”So, have you thought of any names yet?” Mewlin wants nothing to do with any kits themselves, but does she ever love naming things.

The round Magician hums, her paws tucked up against her round belly as she mulls over her thoughts. She said the other day she had been thinking of names, and so they’re all here today to help her pick out the best ones.

”Well, I was thinking of Bracketkit, for one of them. It’s a kind of mushroom, and what one of my brothers was named after.”

Mewlin notes how Mist and Toothpaste both seem to deflate, but she knows why this is too. The other Magicians had been trying to get Lilyfrost to not give her kits traditional Clan names, since Mist hadn’t, and Toothpaste wasn’t planning on doing it either. Lilyfrost saying she wants to name a kit Bracketkit instead of just Bracket, however, was driving it home. There’s no way she’s going to be swayed to a non-traditional name now.

Personally, Mewlin also thinks she shouldn't use Clan names, but she knows better than to argue with a Magician about the names of her kits.

”How about, like, another flower name? Or something like Rust, maybe?” Toothpaste looks to actually be interested in this, and Mewlin guesses it’s because she’s excited for her own little Clowns to come. Ugh, Mewlin’s never getting pregnant.

”Rustkit has a nice ring to it,” Mist adds in, and Auletris is nodding, and so Mewlin nods as well. Rustkit does actually sound pretty nice, but she’s nowhere near as into the name Rustpaw. It sounds dumb as hell, and Mewlin really hopes Cypressstar gives that kit a good warrior name, because otherwise she’s pretty sure they’ll get bullied their whole life.

Apparently that’s the end of name talk, and suddenly the Magicians are deep into another conversation. Mewlin mostly zoned them out, because they seem to be talking about Clowns, and while she’s sure many would find this rude, they’ve done this often enough that she knows the other mollies understand that she’s just not that interested. She curls up in her corner, and finds her gaze snagging on Auletris. Mewlin’s eyes flicker over the Siamese’s posture, and she feels herself frown a little. She’s seemed a lot more tense, over the last little bit. Mewlin knows a bit of it, since Auletris came to her right after Weasel’s untimely confession, but she’s been avoiding talking about it further.

She knows Auletris is torn up and unsure what to do, but Mewlin has no idea how to broach the subject. She can sense the Magicians getting worried about it too, but none of them dare say anything to the other Acrobat about it. Auletris has always had some kind of vibe to her; some kind of feeling she gave off that made you cautious about asking her about anything personal.

Mewlin knows that Auletris will come to them when she’s ready to talk about it, and she knows that none of them will bring it up until then, but it’s still a bit sad, so know that the Acrobat is keeping it all locked away inside. Personally, Mewlin sees no point in dealing with relationships, but it’s obvious that Auletris doesn’t think the same, and Mewlin knows better by now than to force her opinion down the other’s throat.

So, she tucks her nose under a paw, and closes her eyes. She lets the Magician’s words wash over her, and slips into a small nap. At least she also knows they’ll wake up her and give her plenty of time to leave before Mist’s little hellions come back.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Turtlepaw hums softly as she stares out at the distance. She thinks that her old twolegs lived far off in the direction she’s looking, but. She doesn’t remember.

A twig snaps behind her, and the little apprentice smiles over her shoulder at her mentor. She knew it was Poisonfang, and she knows that the Acrobat probably stepped on that twig on purpose. Poisonfang is usually very silent when they walk, and Turtlepaw knows that any snapping was absolutely intentional.

”What’re you doing, little snapper?” Poisonfang’s voice is soft, and it makes Turtlepaw relax. She’s gotten very close with her mentor over the last two months of living here, and honestly, they’re kind of like an older sibling, more than an authoritative figure.

And that’s what makes Turtlepaw’s tongue loose enough to actually tell them what’s on her mind.

”I was just thinking. I think my twolegs used to live in this direction. They’re very far away, I’m sure, but sometimes I feel like I can somehow sense it. I have no idea of really knowing, since they left me on the Thunderpath and I don’t know where we came from, but. I feel it was that way, you know?”

Poisonfang doesn’t respond, and Turtlepaw doesn’t feel any offense. It was a rhetorical question, after all. She knows the Acrobat used to be a rogue, and doesn’t feel much of a connection to their old colony; but she trusts that they understand it enough to be confident that this silence isn’t one of discomfort.

Poisonfang settles down next to her, and Turtlepaw lets herself list to the side just enough to rest her head against Poisonfang’s shoulder. They two sit there for a while, Turtlepaw staring into the distance trying to imagine her old home somewhere far off in the distance, and Poisonfang a silent but comforting presence beside her all the while.


	13. 011 - Only cute, I promise

Auletris inhales deeply, and then finally knocks her paw on the upturned metal snake’s head. She knows that this is the one that Weasel lives in, and she knows for sure that the Tamer is in there.

A minute passes, and Auletris begins to think that maybe she was wrong. Maybe the Tamer escaped from the other side while Auletris was trying to talk herself into knocking. Maybe the Tamer was never in there to begin with, and Auletris has just imagined her going in. Only, no, that last one is wrong, because Mewlin had seen it also, and that’s why Auletris was standing here in the first place.

Suddenly the little abyssinian’s head pokes out from under the skull, and Auletris just barely keeps herself from jumping back from the shock of it.

They stare at one another for a few long, long moments, before Weasel speaks up.

”Did you need something?” she asks, and Auletris’ eyes narrow a little. She’s never heard the Tamer sound so withdrawn, and she almost cracks and begins apologizing immediately.

Instead, Auletris takes a deep breath, before dipping her head and meowing softly, ”Would you come on a walk with me? So we can talk?”

Since Auletris’ head is bowed, she doesn’t notice the way the Tamer’s eyes narrow, or how she aggressively blinks away tears. Auletris keeps her head down, and waits patiently until Weasel says something.

It feels like forever, but eventually Weasel responds. ”Of course, where are we going?” Auletris flinches back at the shaky tone to her voice. It makes her upset, and she suddenly understands why Syrinxecho has been giving her such disappointed looks the last couple moons.

Auletris leads the way out of the camp, keeping a slow pace as to not make it hard on Weasel. Weasel has such small legs, after all, and Auletris doesn’t want to make the little Tamer have to run to keep up with her.

Neither speak for the first few minutes. Auletris had meant to keep away from the Pond of the Stars, but soon enough the pair is standing silently next to it, looking down at the clear surface.

It makes Auletris uncomfortable, knowing that this strange little pond is where Weasel and Cypressstar are able to talk to Cirque de Étoile; but Weasel seems to be relaxing the longer they stand there, so Auletris doesn’t bring up her discomfort.

It’s another long few minutes before Weasel looks truly relaxed, and so Auletris takes this chance to speak.

”I’d like to start off by telling you how sorry I am. Sorry that I just ran off.” She doesn’t clarify what she ran off from, but she knows she doesn’t need to. Weasel’s shoulders clearly go back to being tense, but Auletris charges onward.

”I didn’t know how to deal with it, and I needed time to think. I never meant to hurt you, but I know I did anyway. And so I’m sorry.”

Weasel opens her mouth, clearly about to speak, and so Auletris keeps going. She knows that if Weasel says anything, that if she hears the Tamer’s voice even just a little, that she’ll break down immediately.

”I needed time to think about it, and I ended up pushing you out while I did, and I’m so sorry for that, Weasel. That wasn’t fair to you.” Auletris takes in a shaky breath, and then barrels onward. ”I’ve never dealt with these kinds of emotions before, and so I panicked. I ran off, and then I started avoiding you, all because I was being selfish.”

She turns to look at the water, and seeing how still it is somehow manages to both make her uncomfortable and calm her. Taking a deep breath this time, Auletris turns back to Weasel with a look of determination.

”I know I’m probably too late, but. Weasel, would you do me the honour of becoming my mate?”

Auletris barely finishes speaking before Weasel lunges forward, and Auletris lets out a yelp as she’s tackled to the ground. She weakly bats at Weasel, but the little molly easily dodges her paws to shove her face against Auletris’. Auletris pauses as she feels the Tamer rub their foreheads together, and after a few moments a low purr builds up from the back of her throat. She closes her eyes, and moves her head just enough to bump their noses together.

Yeah it took her awhile to get her shit together, but it looks like it all worked out in the end.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The first two come out fine. Perfect little kittens, with Weasel keeping a careful eye as they settle in against Lilyfrost’s belly. She’s already so full of love for them that she’s ready to burst, but she holds off on that to instead clench her teeth as the next wave hits her. She thinks Weasel is saying there’s probably only two more, but Lilyfrost is over this whole birth thing.

Kittens are cute, sure, but she’s not at all interested in going through this ordeal again.

When the next kit comes, Lilyfrost knows immediately something is wrong. It felt wrong, and if the way Weasel’s breath hitches, it’s clear that it wasn’t just her imagination. Lilyfrost can feel the panic clawing its way up her throat, but she forces it down, and instead focuses on getting the last kit out. She can feel that if she starts panicking now something bad will happen to the last one. Or the last ones, she’s still not sure how many are left.

It’s not too long after that Weasel says she’s finished, and as soon as Lilyfrost feels the third - the last, her mind unhelpfully supplies - latch on to her chest, and lets a sob rip through her.

Weasel doesn’t bother to sugarcoat anything, and instead gently places the form of the stillborn kitten in front of her. Lilyfrost reaches out, and gently brings the poor thing closer. She doesn’t even think the little kitten even had a chance to take their first breath, and the thought just makes her sob even harder. She’s so glad that the three that survived did, of course, but she knows deep down that she won’t be able to get over this.

She hears someone else enter the Magician’s den, but even that doesn’t make her stop crying. She doesn’t realize who it is until a tough tongue is running along the top of her head, and then it just makes her cry even harder. She knew, deep down, that Mewlin really cared, but having proof like this just completely shatters any composure she had left.

She tucks the stillborn kitten under her chin as she continues to cry. Mewlin is talking from behind her, probably making comments about the kittens that did survive, but Lilyfrost can’t focus on words right now. Just the sound of the other molly’s voice helps calm her a little, but at this point, it’s just making her tired.

Soon enough Lilyfrost’s falling asleep to Mewlin’s voice, and her last thought before she drifts off is ’I didn’t even name them.’

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Puffball prances over to where Babypaw is sunning herself, and hops up to sit next to her. They’re on top of one of the weird metal mice that’s been tipped over, and he grins down at her.

He’s been in this Clan for a few days, and Babypaw took to him immediately with the first ridiculous story he told. He’s been avoiding the other Musician, and so he’s been mostly spending time with the Jugglers and Clowns.

Not that there’s anything wrong with the other Musician! On the contrary; he’s probably the most gorgeous cat Puffball’s ever seen. Or, well, second most, even if he hasn’t seen the first in over 80 moons.

Babypaw beams up at him, her single eye squinted shut, and Puffball feels himself melt a little at the sight of it. ”Good morning, gramps!” He almost breaks and laughs at the name, but manages to keep his reaction to only a small flinch. They’d started on this joke on the second day of knowing each other, and he thinks it’s hilarious.

Puffball had been talking about all the molly’s he’d fathered kits with (all lies, but no one needs to know) and Babypaw had gone along with it (clearly catching on to his lies) and offhandedly said that one of the descriptions sounded like how her mother described _her_ mother, and it’d taken off since then. So now they’re playing up the idea of Puffball being Babypaw’s grandpa, and it’s honestly been his favourite bullshit story of the bunch.

At least, so far.

”Good morning, my darling~” He purrs, and at Babypaw’s laugh his chest puffs out with pride.

Out of the corner of his eye Puffball spots him. The cream point tom comes out of the Musician’s den, head held high and walking around like he isn’t over 100 moons old, and honestly? It takes a lot of effort for Puffball to not make the most ridiculous heart eyes at the guy.

Puffball thought he was done with this whole attraction thing. He hasn’t had any real attraction to anyone since he left home, and at this point he doubts he’ll ever find who he left for, so what the hell, right?

He feels more than hears Babypaw laughing beside him, and turns his head to shoot her another grin, before getting off the metal mouse.

”Hey hey, Ancientpower! Wait up!” Puffball shouts, and lo and behold, wait up he does. Puffball almost freezes up when he sees the older tom stop, and just barely manages to force his limbs to keep moving.

He scurries over, ignoring the slight pain spiking up his left back leg. The other Musician is even more handsome up close, and it makes the roof of his mouth go dry as he loses his words. Puffball feels like Ancientpower’s blue eyes are gazing into his soul, and while he doesn’t look annoyed at all, Puffball can’t help but think he probably is.

”I just wanted to ask if you were tired is all!” He mews, and oh, there it is. The look of confusion clouding over the other tom’s face makes him flush with warmth, and he almost breaks into a grin before he can even finish.

”Tired? From what?”

Oh, this is so sweet! He fell right into it!

”Why, from running through my head all day!” He purrs, and the way that Ancientpower’s face closes off into a stoic look really shouldn’t be as attractive as it is. Puffball almost cracks and starts laughing when he can see the realization in Ancientpower’s eyes as he finally understands what Puffball said to him.

The stoic mask begins to crack, and that’s the last straw. Puffball’s face splits into a grin, and it makes Ancientpower look away with his ears flattened.

”You’re ridiculous,” Ancientpower insists, and it only makes Puffball start laughing. He nudges his shoulder against the older tom’s, and is pleased when he nudges right back.

The two of them start walking, Puffball going on about some random story that he’s making up on the spot. He’s gotten quite good at spinning tall tales over the years, and while he can tell Ancientpower knows they’re all fake, the never once has he asked him to stop, and so he carries on.

He’s half way through telling the story of how he broke a sheltered kittypet out of their twoleg home when the other finally stops and gives him a funny look. Puffball stops talking almost immediately, and pouts. This is probably the only story of his that has any merit, even if he’s telling the story from the wrong perspective. Ancientpower keeps looking more and more confused, and it’s making him feel a bit offended, honestly.

Puffball’s ears flatten, and he frowns. ”What, what’s wrong? I get it, I tell stupid stories that aren’t real, but this one is. Or, like, most of it. So stop looking at me so weird, because it’s pretty fucking rude.” He hasn’t been so defensive over something since he was trying to defend Cosmos and why he loved him to his parents before he ran away from home to live with him. It ended horribly, and he has no doubts that this is going to end the same way. KeyClan has been so nice, but Ancientpower was here first, and if it comes down to it, Puffball’s been drifting between different places for so long now, that it won’t be that hard to get back on the road again. Even if he is almost 100 moons old.

However, just before he ends up turning away, Ancientpower seems to snap out of it and reaches out a paw, placing it down on Puffball’s a little roughly and making him wince. Ancientpower winces right back, and his ears flatten.

”Wait, no, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you upset. It just, is a lot like a story from my own youth, is all.” Ancientpower looks pretty remorseful, and so Puffball lets out a huff, and turns to gently butt his head into the other Musician’s shoulder.

The two stand there in silence for a few minutes, before Puffball speaks up with a timid voice.

”That story. It uh, it’s not exactly true. I mean, I wasn’t the one breaking anyone out of a twoleg den, I mean. I was the kittypet, and the one breaking me out was this rogue named-”

”Cosmos.” The name’s barely more than a soft exhale from Ancientpower’s mouth, but it makes Puffball’s fur stand on end. They stare at one another for a long moment, neither daring to breathe.

The sting of tears is what finally makes Puffball snap out of it, and the whiplash from being so confused that he didn’t know what emotion to feel into this? It’s like nothing he’s ever felt. He can’t even name all the emotions filling him up, but he knows he can name one of them for sure.

Love.

”It’s really you.” He doesn’t wait for any kind of confirmation, but he knows by the expression on Ancientpower’s face that he doesn’t need one. Instead, he lunges forward, completely ignoring the pain of his back leg and the fact that they’re both 100 moons old, and tackles the older Musician to the ground.

Puffball shoves his face against Ancientpower’s throat, and sobs into the short fur there for a few moments. He’s crouched down, completely engulfing the other tom with his body, and just lets himself bask in the moment. He can feel Ancientpower pawing at his sides, and his ears flick with discomfort when the other tom nips at them, but it isn’t enough to make him get up.

It takes a good minute or two, but eventually Ancientpower seems to settle, letting his head drop to the ground and accepting that Puffball isn’t going to be moving anytime soon. They have a lot to talk about, but for now? This is enough.


	14. 012 - Don't forget, nothing is as it seems

Babypaw can barely hold in her excitement. Today’s the day she gets her Acrobat name, and not even the thought of the silent vigil that will follow can dampen her spirits. She sits next to Swiftwind, her head held higher, and she can feel the older tom purr he’s being so loud.

She watches Cypressstar jump up to the ledge of his den, and can’t help but feel awe for how fluid the motion is. Does she look that graceful when she jumps? Half of the time she feels like she won’t even make the landing, since she seems to misjudge her jumps sometimes with only having one eye, but Swiftwind was telling her the other day she was getting much better at it! She hopes she can jump with that much trust in her actions one day.

”-me up here?” Swiftwind nudges Babypaw out of her musings just in time for her to hear the tail end of whatever Cypressstar was talking about. She shoots her mentor a grateful look, before then getting up to her paws and making her way up to stand in front of her leader and receive her new name.

She hears Cypressstar speak, and she can see his mouth moving, but all his words seem to fall on deaf ears. She can't actually _hear_ anything that he’s saying, and while she feels in any other situation she might’ve panicked, she simply stands there in static as she lets the simple sound of Cypressstar’s voice wash over her.

There’s other voices all around her now, chanting her new name, and she touches her nose to Cypressstar’s shoulder in thanks, before turning to the Clan with a grin. She’ll ask Jinglebee later what her name is, since she still can’t manage to focus on hearing words, but for now? For now she lets the joy sweep over her, lets herself drown in it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Cottonspore leads his patrol through the woods, right up until they come across a weird dirthill. It looks like the strange snow piles that the twolegs would make in their camps, and he’s completely certain that this pile isn’t something natural. His fur is standing on end, and he hears the rest of the patrol freeze up from behind him.

Calendulaclaw scoffs from behind him, and Cottonspore flushes at the sound. The ginger molly stalks past him, her head held high as she approaches the strange hill. He’s constantly in awe with how confident she is, how unafraid she is of everything that life seems to throw at her. Even now, when everyone else is being overly cautious, she pushes on ahead, refusing to let fear control her. It’s very admirable.

”You’re not doing much good _patrolling_ when you simply freeze up at the sight of something new,” she scoffs, and Cottonspore hurries to walk at her side, earns flat against his skull. He sees how she rolls her eyes at him, and certainly believes he deserves it. He can hear the rest of the patrol hesitantly following them again, and almost lets out an audible sigh of relief. He doesn’t, if only because he doesn’t want to get cuffed over the ears by Calendulaclaw.

There’s a strange shuffling noise, and this time Calendulaclaw is the first one to stop. Cottonspore watches the way her eyes narrow and her nose twitches, and then suddenly she lunges forward.

There’s a shrill squeaking noise, followed by a crunch, and then Calendulaclaw is turning back to them all, blood splattered on her muzzle.

”Rats,” is all she manages before suddenly there’s a swarm of them. They come from within the dirt and sand, seemingly from nowhere, and Calendulaclaw is lost in them almost immediately.

This spurs the rest of them into action. He can hear Scarpaw and Wishpaw hissing and snarling, and a quick glance shows that the two Jugglers are watching each other's backs, and taking out the rats that come back to them.

Auletris darts past Cottonspore, jumping directly into the swarm of rats and presumably crushing a spine or two under her paws. She swipes at the rats, and a few of them go flying from the sheer power in her swing. Her snarls are loud over the terrible screeching of the rats, and Cottonspore is extremely glad that Auletris is an ally.

Deerdash seems to be taking out the rats that get too close to the Jugglers, making sure the young ones don’t get too badly injured. They’re both close to becoming Acrobats themselves, but regardless of that they’re still so young.

Cottonspore himself is trying to get to Calendulaclaw. She’s out of the swarm now, snarling and yowling as she fights off the rats that make the unfortunate decision of coming in range of her claws or teeth. Cottonspore helps by getting the ones that are on her back, and he feels a thrill at the grateful look the older molly shoots at him.

The fight goes on like this for a while, a cacophony of hisses and screeches and yowls as they fight against these rats. Eventually there isn’t more rats coming out anymore, and they finish off the rest of the ones that are out in the open, and then head back to the edge of the forest to check each other for wounds.

Suspicion nags at the back of Cottonspore’s mind as it becomes clear that no one was super injured, but he shrugs it off and lets relief flood over him instead. Rat battles can go very badly, and often did when he lived back by the twolegs, and the fact that it didn’t turn ugly is a blessing. He hears Deerdash quickly thank Étoile, and he can’t help but murmur his thanks as well.

Calendulaclaw is looking at him strangely when he looks towards her next, but when she sees he’s looking, her face seamlessly smoothes out into a grateful expression, and he smiles back at her without hesitation.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

”Aw, come on, Fang! It’ll be fun!” Claw bounces around on her toes, circling her littermate with a grin. Fang shifts to curl up tighter, and buries his nose under his tail. He’s glaring up at her, but he hasn’t actually snapped or told her to go away, so she knows this is just an act.

”Can you just hurry this up? We don’t have all day,” grumbles Pepper, but Claw ignores him. He’s just grumpy, but he can’t do anything to dampen Claw’s enthusiasm! She glances up, and almost laughs at the twin faces of ‘unimpressed’ that Pepper and Shadow are wearing. Energizer is already out of the little nursery den, and Pollen is making her way up.

Turning back to Fang, Claw begins to prod at his sides. ”Come on Fang, we’re going to go explore! I know you want to!” He doesn’t move, predictably, and so Claw presses on his side a bit harder and tries again. ”Come on, Fang, we need you! What if something bad happens? Or a stranger shows up? You’re the strongest of us! We need you!” Claw pitches her voice to whine, and Fang rolls his eyes at her.

She cheers, because after a whole moon of this song and dance she knows that that’s the sign she’s won, and turns immediately to start climbing up to the ledge of the Nursery den to join Pollen. Pepper and Shadow have jumped down to join Energizer already, and when Claw’s front paws are finally on the ledge she can hear Fang starting to climb up behind her.

Claw bumps her forehead against Pollen’s when she gets up to her, and then jumps down to join the others. They’ve been exploring at the edge of the camp since they’ve been big enough to get out of the den on their own, and it’s so exciting! There're so many strange scents that linger at the line of trees, and Shadow almost caught a bird the other day!

Claw relishes in the feeling of the grass under her little paws, and she wiggles her toes for a moment, before laughing and heading off towards the treeline. She hears Energizer shout excitedly behind her, and then he passes her almost immediately. He’s always been the fastest out of them, and getting in a race with him is just asking to get showed up.

Fang is at her side fairly quickly as well, and she shoots him a smug grin. He rolls his eyes at her, and then easily runs past, probably hoping to catch up to Energizer when he slows down to tackle him. It’s always amusing watching the two of them fight; they’re both so thin and have such long limbs, so it’s just a mess. It’s also hilarious.

Claw slows to a trot, and then Shadow is at her side. She turns to smile at her, and Shadow returns the look fondly. Shadow is the youngest, but she’s been growing into herself the most. She’s almost twice the size of Energizer in width alone. Shadow has wide shoulders, while Energizer is thin as a twig, with no muscle build up regardless of how much running he does.

There’s still a moon until they become Jugglers, and then all the training they’ll do then before they become Acrobats, but Claw can’t wait to watch her siblings grow. Can’t wait to see how much bigger Shadow is when she’s full grown and has lost all her baby fat, or how skinny and lanky Energizer ends up. She can’t wait to see how the soft lines of Pollen’s face make her look sweet and a little sad, and how Pepper becomes more confident in running without tripping over his own paws. Most of all she can’t wait to see how Fang grows up, can’t wait to see if he gets muscular like Shadow, or stays little and lithe like Energizer.

Yeah, she can’t wait to see what the future holds for them.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

”No, no, you have to widen your stance. If you keep your paws too close together you can get knocked over.” Poisonfang watches with a critical eye as Turtlepaw corrects her stance, and gives a nod. This is the only thing the Juggler has really been struggling with anymore, and Poisonfang is certain that she will have it down by tomorrow.

They turn around and start heading back to camp without warning, and are pleased to hear Turtlepaw head after them immediately. Poisonfang has never been fond of speaking if it isn’t necessary, and while their juggler certainly struggled with it at first, she’s come quite far from then and is just as good with wordless signals as Poisonfang is. Turtlepaw is a lot louder than they’ve ever been, certainly, but at least she knows how to be quiet.

The little tabby nudges Turtlepaw with their shoulder, and the little gray bicolour nudges right back, and Poisonfang can see her smile from the corner of their eye.

Poisonfang has never been too fond of younglings, but they’re coming around. Not that they’d ever tell anyone.


	15. 013 - Of reunions and antagonizing

Toothpaste hums mindlessly as she runs her tongue along the fur of one of her kittens. They’re a few days old now, and the other Clowns have badgered her too long about giving them names, and so she’s going to do that now.

"Patches could be a good name,” comes the soft voice of Mist, and Toothpaste smiles at the sound of Lilyfrost snorting at the idea of it. She’s pretty sure it’s because Mist doesn’t use the Clan names, and it makes Toothpaste a little hesitant to tell them what she has in mind.

”Hm, that is a nice name, but I was thinking, maybe, Spearmint?” Lilyfrost makes a loud noise of protest, but Toothpaste easily talks over the other Magician. ”Oh, or Toothbrush! Maybe even Mouthwash!" With each name Lilyfrost’s noises get louder, and when Mist looks a little pained. It only makes Toothpaste grin wider and decide yes, these are absolutely names she’s going to give to her kittens.

”Hm, there’s still two more. Maybe a Colgate?” This seems to be the final straw for Lilyfrost, and the spotted tabby gets up to her paws, glaring at Toothpaste for a moment before practically launching herself out of the den. Her own kits attempt to follow, but only Rustkit seems able to make the jumps so far. He comes back down when he sees the others can’t follow, and Toothpaste sighs fondly at the sight.

”You’re terrible, you know that?” Mist’s voice sounds a bit strained, but Toothpaste can hear the underlying tone of amusement that she’s come to love from them. So Toothpaste simply bats her eyes at them.

”Why, I have done nothing wrong! I was simply telling my wonderful friends what I wanted to name my beautiful children! What’s so terrible about that?” Toothpaste pitches her voice to be as high and fake as she possibly can, and when Mist laughs, Toothpaste feels like she’s won some kind of game.

”I’m serious about the names, though. I think I might name the last one Toast, just to piss off Lilyfrost more," she tells her friend, and Mist can do nothing but laugh even louder.

”Ah, hello, Toast,” comes the softest voice Toothpaste has ever heard. She turns to where Bunchberrykit is, and laughs softly when she sees she’s directed the name to the kitten with the most white.

”And would you look at that, there’s the first choice made!” Toothpaste practically sings, and Mist has to stop to cough they’re laughing so hard now. She’ll figure out which of the other kits to name what later, but for now? She’s content. After all, it’s less funny to name them when Lilyfrost isn’t around.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Annie creeps through the low bushes, her soft belly brushing against the ground. It hasn’t grown too large yet, just a tiny enough weight gained to be noticable, but to someone like her it’s all the difference in the world.

She couldn’t keep up with her stealth missions with the knowledge that she was going to be bearing soon, and instead of staying and letting the idiots at home try and force her to stay out of work and be a mother, she’d fled.

Part of her wonders if that’s why Carrie left, but she also knows her sister. She knows she would never allow herself to get out of shape long enough to rear any kind of child.

There’s a snap of a twig to the right, and Annie flattens herself lower to the ground, eyes narrowed and teeth bared as she waits for whatever is there to come out of the bushes.

She doesn’t have to wait long before a group of cats come out of the undergrowth. There’s a little black tabby, who can’t be more than 20 moons at most, leading the patrol. She’s got a spring to her step, and seems to not have noticed Annie’s scent yet. That’s good, because it still gives her the element of surprise.

More cats appear, and Annie makes sure to eye each and every one of them up as they do. There’s a siamese with ridiculously long legs, and directly beside her is a little torbie; likely a training pair of mentor and mentee. The tall one looks like she’d probably put up a good fight, but Annie doubts it’d take much to take out the younger.

Next is a black ticked tabby, and Annie narrows her eyes as she looks her over. She’s very lean, and Annie is willing to bet that this cat is probably a runner. If she were to attack, she’ll want to go for her first, since she’ll be the one that could outrun her and warn the group they’re from.

The next cat makes her freeze, because she’s already looking right at her. Even though Annie is hidden under a bush well enough that she’s certain no one would see her, the golden yellow eyes of this ginger tabby are locked on to hers. A smile slowly creeps onto the other’s face, and Annie snarls as she snakes her way out from under the bush.

All the other cats yelp, but Annie doesn’t care about them. She only has eyes for her idiot sister.

”My my Annie, a little far from home, aren’t you?” Carrie coos, and Annie bares her teeth just to be a bitch. Carrie only laughs, and then she’s approaching, walking in a slow circle around Annie with eyes like a hawk.

If Annie could tell just from the feeling already that she’s pregnant, there's no doubt in her mind that Carrie knew the second she stood up.

”Carrie. I didn’t expect to see you again.” Annie keeps her tone even, and Carrie shoots her another predatory look. It’s clear Carrie knows what she means. She didn’t expect Carrie to still be alive; hell, she didn’t even expect _herself_ to still be alive after Carrie left. Their group doesn’t take kindly to deserters, and they have a reputation of taking it out on any kin that remain.

Which, well, there’s a reason Annie is pregnant, and it’s the same reason she left. But she’s sure Carrie already knows all that, so she doesn’t bother to say any of this.

”Calendulaclaw.” Is all her sister says in response, and Annie tilts her head at her, clearly judging her. She’s heard of Clans before, and of course Carrie would run to one of them and change her name. It makes sense, and after a few seconds of maintaining eye contact, Carrie - no, Calendulaclaw, now - nods and turns to the siamese.

”Auletris, this is my sister, Annie. We’re taking her back, and I’ll ask Cypressstar if she can stay, if only for the duration of her pregnancy.” Annie watches all the other cats do a double take at her, and Annie just barely holds back from scoffing. Even if it isn’t obvious in her appearance yet, there’s been a noticeable change to her scent. Though, after mulling around the thought for a moment, these cats don’t know her regular smell, so she can’t judge them too harshly for being so blind.

On that thought.

”What if I don’t want to come along, hm?” Annie asks, just to be annoying. She relishes in the sneer that Calendulaclaw shoots her.

”Fine, have my nieces and nephews in the woods like a heathen. Get out of our borders though, because I won’t go easy on you.”

”Oh dear, whatever shall I do. I thought threatening a pregnant molly was beneath you, Calendulaclaw.” She draws out her sister's new name, and almost laughs at the little twitch of annoyance that comes from one of her ears. Oh, her sister is so fun to rile up.

The other cats look horrified by their exchange, but Annie finds it easy to block their existence from her mind. She looks deep into Calendulaclaw’s eyes, before then turning to smile kindly at Auletris..

”Pardon my manners, I forgot there were others around. We’re simply joking, and I forgot not everyone is like that with their siblings. I’d love to come meet this Cypressstar, though, if you’d let me.” It isn’t a question, and she can tell the siamese knows this, but she’s sure some of the other cats here will have taken her tone to be curious, and that’s what matters.

For a moment she thinks she sees a spark of pride in Calendulaclaw’s eyes, and she can’t help but be offended. She knows her sister was always the more charismatic of them, but honestly, she’s insulted that Calendulaclaw thinks she couldn’t bullshit her way into a new home.

Auletris simply nods and begins leading the way back to what Annie guesses is their camp, and Calendulaclaw moves to walk alongside the other ginger tabby in the group; the one that Anne didn’t really register before she noticed her sister standing there. Annie finds herself in the middle of the group, probbal to keep her from running, and simply follows. After all, if she wanted to leave, she’d already be gone.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Bookclub huffs softly to themself, watching the young cats playing in and around the broken roller coaster pierces and the tracks with cautious eyes. They’re not too fond of this Clan yet, but they can’t leave knowing that they call things “metal mice” or “giant metal snake spine”. It’s stupid, because they’re so clearly overturned bumpercars and an old, rotted roller coaster that’s tipped all the way over.

"So, how’re you settlin’ in, Princess?” comes a cheerful voice from behind them, and Bookclub closes their eyes for a moment, forcing the fond smile off their face that the sound brings, and then turning to face her. It’s Slybird, and she’s hanging down from the roof of the old fun house building that the Acrobats and Musicians live in. She’s got her back feet on the rotted old shingles, and her front paws dangling down, and seems to be trying to bat at Bookclub’s ears.

Needless to say,they’re not very impressed.

”Princess Pumpernickel. If you’re going to call me by my old name, you will address me by my whole title or not at all,” they deadpan, and Slybird simply grins like the cat that got the cream. Bookclub has only been here for a few days, but already they’re ridiculously endeared by the idiotic bengal molly that keeps coming around to pester them.

The worst part - or perhaps the best, depending on how you look at it - is Bookclub knows this cat. They’d met Slybird a few times, back when they lived in their owner’s quaint little bookshop. Slybird’s own owners were frequent customers, and occasionally they would bring her with them so she could socialize with Bookclub.

Slybird was called Fyngyrs at the time, and Bookclub had never been so disgusted with the way something was spelt than the day she caught sight of the horrible name on her collar.

However, her owners had stopped coming in one day, after telling Bookclub’s owner that Fyngyrs had disappeared when they were on vacation. They had then made it their mission to find the molly and bring her home, but she seems a lot more content here. There’s no one to yell at Slybird to get off the shelves, or to stop dangling precariously from the horns of the stuffed moose heads on the wall.

Though, sometimes, Bookclub feels like Slybird really needs to be yelled at for that.

”Aw, but it’s such a mouthful, Princess! Besides, your twolegs never called you by your full name either! They called you Pumpkin!” Slybird is still dangling, and in moments like these Bookclub wishes they never left their cosy home.

(No, that’s a lie. Bookclub could never go back, not now. Not after having all this freedom, and knowing that she can spend so much more time with Slybird. No, Bookclub doesn’t think they’ll ever go back to their human.)

”Well, it’s a good thing my name is Bookclub now, isn’t it?” They ask, tone dry, and all it does is make Slybird laugh.

Slybird pulls her paws back up, and then jumps down to the ground without even stopping to judge the distance; to find the best place to land. Bookclub hisses and lunges to the side, and whips around with a glare to find that Slybird landed exactly where they were just sitting.

”You imbecile! Do that again and I’ll rip your ears off!" Bookclub snarls, but they both know it’s a lie. Slybird used to do this back in the store a lot, and Bookclub has never once made good on that threat.

Slybird laughs again, and trots over to bump their foreheads together, her eyes sparkling as she stares into Bookclub’s.

”Come on, Bookworm, you gotta liven up!” and then Slybird is running off. Good thing too, because Bookclub lashes out at the spot she was just standing. With a snarl that’s much more playful than hostile, Bookclub takes off after Slybrd, the bengal molly laughing all the while.

Yeah, there’s no way Bookclub is going to be giving this up.


	16. 014 - This turned out sadder than I planned

Jinglebee covers her mouth with a paw, and snickers quietly. Cattwampusfur has just finished telling herself and Turtledove a fun story about how she tried to help her twolegs play a weird game with little wooden logs that they’d pull out, and how she always managed to knock it over on the first try.

She says it seemed to have been the point of the game, and she was proud of herself for winning every time, but it’s still pretty funny trying to imagine a twoleg playing such a weird game.

”They were real sweet an’ all, don’t be gettin’ me wrong, but they were just so strange! I tried to not knock over the pile, so one of ‘em could win sometimes, but I was never quite able to figure out how to go about doin’ it!” Cattywampusfur ends her story, and Jinglebee tips over to fall against Turtledove, her laughter seemingly endless.

Turtledove shoves Jinglebee back upright with a roll of her eyes, but Jinglebee can tell how fond the look is. The younger molly has just become a Juggler a few days ago, and the three of them became fast friends when Cattywampusfur joined, and Jinglebee is glad to have a group of friends now.

She was close with Babypuff when they were Jugglers, but Babypuff spends more time with the Musicians, and they haven’t hung out much since she became an Acrobat.

Jinglebee adores her friend, don’t get her wrong, and she hopes Babypuff makes this trio a quartet one day; but for now she’s content.

”I don’t remember my twolegs having fun games like that, but their kits liked to bring bugs into the house for my siblings and I to hunt!” Turtledove pipes up, and Jinglebee blinks in surprise. She honestly forgot that Turtledove used to be a kittypet, and hearing her talk about it really threw it back into perspective.

Cattywampusfur laughs about it, and Jinglebee and Turtledove join her not a moment later. Jinglebee is glad that Turtledove can talk about her old twolegs now fondly. She remembers the terrified little kitten who couldn’t stop asking why her twolegs would abandon her like that. Why they’d let her out of the Monster for what she assumed was a chance to relieve herself, only to close the doors and leave her there alone.

Jinglebee may not have the same kittypet background as these two mollies, but she certainly knows what it’s like to be abandoned. Her mother left her as soon as she seemed able to hunt for herself, but before that Jinglebee had never had a good life. Her mother has been harsh and cruel, and never once in Jinglebee’s memory was there ever a smile aimed in her direction.

Her mother told her she was a single kit, but Jinglebee remembers differently. She remembers huddling against two other tny bodies when she was still young and could only live on her mother's milk. She remembers seeing the dead bodies of two other little kittens before her mother began wandering with Jingle Bell at her side.

Jinglebee remembers thinking they were products of her nightmares, because everytime she tried to bring them up to her mother she got another bruise, or another scratch.

She’s dragged out of her thoughts by the sound of Turtledove and Cattywampusfur laughing again, and with a flick of her tail, Jinglebee lets the thoughts drift out of her mind and join them.

Yeah she’s had a rough past, and yeah many of the other cats here have as well. But they’re happier here, they belong here, and that’s what matters. She’ll have to confront her ast at some pont, put it to rest, but for now? It’s easy to ignore.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The leaves crackle under his paws, and Rustkit looks up at his siblings with narrowed eyes. Bracketkit has been bugging him for the last two days to come out and explore with him, and today Bunchberrykit finally caved, and Rustkit knew he wasn’t going to be able to deny _both_ of them.

He frowns at the way Bracketkit is rolling around on the freshly fallen leaves, but doesn’t bother to comment. Slipping his eyes closed, Rustkit simply listens to the sounds around him.

Bunchberrykit is to his right, and he can hear her jumping around as she attempts to catch the leaves from the air. Every one she’s caught so far she’s added to the pile that Bracketkit is rolling in, and the sounds of their laughter have been the only real upside to coming out here so far.

There’s the feeling of claws in his tail, and Rustkit leaps to his paws with a snarl, and whirls around to face whoever did it. He thought it was going to be Bracketkit, but the eyes he stares into don’t belong to a cat.

Snarling loudly, Rustkit begins to back away, ears flattened as he eyes up the strange gray and white creature. It’s got big teeth and ears, and it’s muzzle is long and strange looking. It’s strange black eyes flicker to the side, and before Rustkit can react it’s darting off.

The next sound that comes to Rustkit’s ears is Bunchberrykit’s terrified cry, and he throws himself into action without a second thought.

He launches himself at the creature, landing on its back, sinking his tiny fangs into one of its large ears. The strange monster gives a screech, and Rustkit watches Bunchberrykit rush back to the main section of camp. He’s glad that she’s running off, and in his moment of relief, the monster shakes him off.

Rustkit hits the ground face first, and yelps as he rolls with the force of it and lands on his back. He can hear Bracketkit fighting with it now, and forces himself to get back up to help his brother. Bracketkit isn’t very strong, after all, and regardless Rustkit would never leave either of his siblings to fight something like this alone.

Rustkit gets the monster’s tail between his jaws and bites down, and it rears back with another scream, throwing Bracketkit off its back. It swipes at Rustkit, it’s sharp claws catching under his left eye and opening up his cheek, and then it flees with one last snarl.

He can hear Bunchberrykit yelling for him, and distantly wonders why she’s back, before he passes out.

\--

Rustkit wakes up an indeterminate amount of time later, blinking his eyes open slowly. There’s something wet on his cheek, and he moves to brush it off.

”Ah, please don’t do that, Rustkit! You need to keep it on your wound to make sure it doesn’t get infected!” Comes Pollen’s voice, and Rustkit huffs and looks up at her. She and her siblings had just been named Jugglers a week ago, and she’s studying medicine under Weasel.

Now that he’s paying attention, Rustkit recognizes the smells of different herbs around him, and lets his paw drop back down.

”How’re Bracketkit and Bunchberrykit?” He questions, his voice small and cracking somewhere in the middle. Before Pollen can answer, however, they squeeze under the metal vertebrae with excited shouting.

Bunchberrykit’s eyes are pooling up with tears, and Bracketkit has a grin on his face, but there's concern clear in his bright orange eyes.

”You really showed that rat who was boss, huh?” Bracketkit prods, and Rustkit simply hums. So the monster was a rat, huh? He remembers hearing Deerdash talking about how they fought off a big group of rats, and wonders briefly if this one was from that group, hoping to take some kind of revenge.

It almost makes him feel bad, but then he remembers the sound of Bunchberrykit screaming and decides he doesn’t really care that much.

They’re all safe now, and the rat is gone, and honestly? That’s enough for him.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Swiftwind hums softly as he makes his way through the camp, picking his steps carefully across the coloured leaves on the ground. He’s heading towards the edge of camp, and he smiles fondly at seeing his company is already standing there.

Wishflower turns at the sound of him stepping on a particularly crunchy leaf, and his heart beats faster at the excited look on her face. She’s still so young, but she’s so lovely,

Swiftwind licks her forehead once he’s close enough, and she purrs and bumps her nose under his chin in return. They then head out of camp, and Swftwind’s heart soars as he continues to watch her. His daughter has come so far since they’ve joined this Clan, and he’s so glad that she’s fit in so well to her new home.

She was so hesitant to leave originally, but AspenClan was no longer their home and they simply had to live with that fact. It took her awhile to get used to KeyClan, but once she did she practically took flight with how easily she fit in.

There isn’t a destination in mind; Swiftwind just wanted to take a walk with his daughter.

”I’m proud of you, you know that?” He asks suddenly, and by the look Wishflower gives him, it was a pretty stupid question. Swiftwind cuckles fondly at her expression, and she gives him that look for a few more seconds before joining in.

She may only have been promoted to a Juggler a month ago, but he’s so proud that she’s come this far. The rest of their walk is taken in silence, but it’s nice. It’s nice to be able to simply walk with the most important person in your life, no need for words. Simply existing together and knowing that no matter what, you’ll always be able to have these kinds of moments.


	17. 015 - Ignoring the fox, this is a cute chapter

Steelwing has grown so used to patrols going smoothly over the moons that he’s lived here, that when the strangely acidic scent gets close enough to be noticeable, he almost completely ignores it.

Another step and he pauses, eyes narrowing and one of his ears flicking absently as he raises his head to get a better grip on the scent. He opens his mouth, ready to ask what it is, but then another voice is breaking through the strange silence the patrol has fallen into.

”A fox.”

Babypuff’s voice is soft and breathless, and Steelwing bristles a little at the name.

(The irony, of course, is not lost on him. The cat whose birth name was fox being the one to tell what the scent is? It would almost make him laugh if he wasn’t so scared.)

”It doesn’t smell very close, but be on guard.” Steelwing orders, and even Cypressstar nods along with his words. The patrol splits off, everyone heading in different directions to try and see where the scent is strongest.

”Hey, this way!” Comes Energypaw’s voice, and Steelwing takes off towards him before he’s even done with the first syllable. The scent gets stronger the closer he gets to where Energypaw is, and it makes Steelwing want to heave. It’s such a gross smell, and it makes him want to turn tail and _run._

”That’s an awful smell,” Jinglebee grumbles, and there’s murmurs of agreement from everyone else there.

After patrolling around the area for a few more minutes, Steelwing decides that the fox isn’t here right now.

”I think we should head back to camp, maybe send another patrol to check on this that’s prepared for it?” Steelwing suggests, and just barely stops himself from sighing with relief when Cypressstar agrees.

Leading the way back, Steelwing lets himself drift off mentally. Is the patrol that comes back to find the fox going to get hurt? He’s scared of it, yeah, but that doesn’t mean he wants anyone else in this Clan to get injured because of his cowardice.

With a soft sigh, he pushes away the thought. He’ll just have to hope that the fox was just passing by and that nothing happens to them.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Pollen approaches the strange plant, her eyes narrowing as she studies the strange purple-blue coloured berries. Their leaves are spiky looking, and she frantically searches her mind to try and figure out what these are. She knows that Weasel has taught her about this kind of berry, and after a few minutes of thought she perks up and turns to her mentor with a grin,

”These are juniper berries, right?” She questions, and when Weasel grins back she gives an excited whoop.

She’s already properly identified the elder leaves and the sorrel they’ve found so far today, and Pollen is practically vibrating in her excitement. At first she didn’t understand why Weasel wanted her to be her Juggler, but after spending the last moon learning the herbs that Weasel has stored, and now going out and finding things, she understands.

This is way more fun than she could ever imagine being an Acrobat could be.

”Yeah! You’re doin’ great!” Weasel cheers, and then she comes up to stand next to Pollen, and carefully reaches out with a paw to carefully get some of the berries off their weirdly spiky branches.

Pollen watches carefully, making mental notes about how Weasel treats the plant to not break any of the berries and also not hurt her paws, and makes herself a promise that she’ll remember that as best as she cann, so next time she can try and get the berries herself.

Weasel then takes the berries over to where the leaves are, and gently bundles them all together before picking them up. They then head back to camp, and Pollen hopes to be even a fraction as cool as Weasel one day.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Claw pouts as she makes herself comfortable in the little metal mouse. She shares it with all of her siblings, since it’s so big and they’re still so small, but it’s empty right now she thinks that’s the best.

Tucking her nose under a paw, Clow begins to pout in earnest. She failed her hunting training today, and while she knows Syrinxecho isn’t disappointed in her or anything, she still can’t help but think she’s let her mentor down.

He was so earnest and excited to start training with her, and it only made her more excited to try, and she ended up messing it all up because of it.

There’s a crunching noise from just outside the mouse, and Claw shuts her eyes tight and hopes that whoever it is takes the hint and leaves her alone.

She hears two paws gently land against the side of the mouse, and then there’s just silence.

When she thinks they’re finally going to leave, a voice speaks up with a hint of amusement to his tone.

”Jeez, Claw what’s got your tail in a knot?” Fang asks, and despite the teasing tone she can tell that her brother is concerned. He’s always been the best at noticing everyone’s moods, and while Claw usually enjoys it, it just serves to make her even more upset right now.

”Go away, Fang, I don’t want to talk about it,” she mumbles, but he only jumps into the metal mouse. Claw opens an eye to glare at him, but Fang isn’t even looking at her right now.

”Pepperpaw and Energypaw almost failed their training today.” Fang begins, and when Claw doesn’t say anything he seems to take that as his chance to keep going. ”Energypaw was getting too excited, and Jinglebee wasn’t really helping to calm him down. Honestly, I think the Acrobats only said he passed because they didn’t want to deal with him again.”

Claw snorts at this, and she sees Fang’s ear flick, but otherwise he ignores her as he carries on. ”Pepperpaw was doing really good, but Energypaw scared away the mouse he was tracking, and he almost attacked him over it. Mewlin seemed just as offended; I really think Cypressstar paired us up with cats he thought we’d have he same personalities as.”

That makes Claw snort again, and she takes her paw off her muzzle with a roll of her eyes. She opens her mouth to say something against it, but then she stops and actually thinks about it.

Pollen is very sweet, and she’s always had a driving thirst for knowledge about things, and while her sister may deny it, she’d always been more interested in Weasel and her work than any of the Acrobats. And while Claw doesn’t think they really have the same personality, there's no denying that Pollen has become a lot more talkative since she’s started training with the Tamer.

Pepperpaw has always had an air about him that makes you think he thinks he’s better than you, and there's really no denying that Mewlin is the exact same. She was honestly concerned when Cypressstar named Mewlin his mentor because they seemed too alike.

Fang is rather mean seeming to anyone who isn’t close to him, or doesn’t know him very well. Caledulaclaw has always given Claw the creeps, but it kind of makes sense to say Fang is kind of the same. Though, she’s pretty sure that Fang doesn’t want anything to do with her.

Energypaw has never seemed tired once in his life, and Jinglebee is very much the same. They seem like a very chaotic pair, but Claw also doesn’t think he’d be able to be taught by anyone any less enthusiastic.

Shadowpaw is quiet and kind of seems sad, and Flareblitz is absolutely the Acrobat that embraces that kind of feeling. He always looks so sad, but he’s always been nice to them and the other Clowns.

Then there’s Claw. She’s always had a nose for adventure, and while Syrinxecho seems most at ease with following orders, from the last moon she’s spent with him, she knows he’s a lot the same. Honestly, she’s pretty sure the reason she failed her hunting test today is because they both managed to get distracted and completely abandoned Flareblitz and Shadowpaw part way through.

Claw frowns at Fang, and he grins back at her, knowing he’s won.

She sits up, and reaches over to smack her brother on the nose playfully. ”Don’t look so smug, dummy. I would’ve noticed myself soon.” Fang scoffs, and so she gives him another little smack for good measure.

She’s feeling better now, and so she jumps out of the mouse, Fang close at her heels. She’s going to go explore, and she knows her brother will follow her, and so she simply takes off without explaining.

Claw loves all of her siblings, honestly, but there’s a very special place in her heart for Fang. And she doesn’t think anything will ever change that.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Snickersnee hums gently to himself as he makes his way through the camp, his long bushy tail brushing against the ground as he prances around.

His large ears swivel around, and his eyes catch on a gorgeous little black tabby. He grins to himself, and skips over to her.

”This Clan is full of pretty faces, but yours is by far the nicest,” he purrs, and he takes great pleasure in the way she freezes mid step before turning to look at him.

She has brilliant yellow eyes, and Snickersnee can’t deny that he loves cats with gorgeous eyes.

”Oh, um, hello. You’re Snickersneeze, right?”

Snickersnee takes the misname in stride, and gets closer to her, circling around and gently trailing his tail under her chin.

”It’s Snickersnee, but that’s close enough. And what’s your name, gorgeous?” He purrs loudly, and honestly, watching the embarrassment clearly play out on her face is just divine.

”Oh, my apologies. I’m Jinglebee.” An apology and a name? Snickersnee hasn’t done this good the entire time he’s been here so far.

Before he can begin to flirt more, however, a blue ticked tabby appears on Jinglebee’s otherside, and she narrows her eyes at Snickersnee, and he feels like he doesn’t belong here suddenly. He’s used to flirting with taken cats, but he could’ve sworn that this one wasn’t taken for.

Jinglebee seems to relax at the other molly’s presence, and Snickersnee pouts a little bit. He didn’t even notice that she was uncomfortable, and he feels bad for it. Before the other molly can say anything, Snickersnee speaks up again with an apologetic tone.

”I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable or anything, Jinglebee. You can always feel free to tell me to back off; I’m not going to take any offense to it.” She shoots him a startled look, and Snickersnee flattens his ears.

Jinglebee then gives a little laugh, and the blue molly even looks sorry for glaring at him.

”You’re fine, Snickersnee! I was actually on my way to hang out with Cattywampusfur, but you’re welcome to join us!”

He looks over at the other molly - Cattywampusfur, apparently - and she nods at him with a cautious smile. Snickersnee perks up, and beams at the two of them. He may have been shot down in his flirting attempt, but making friends? That’s so much more important, and he’s glad they didn’t chase him off.


	18. 016 - There's a lot going on and I apologize

”You’re going to be giving them Clan names, right?”

Killfang narrowed her eyes, looking up at Calendulaclaw as she began making her way into the nursery. Everyone else cleared out earlier to give Killfang and her new Clowns some rest, but of course she shouldn't’ve expected that to keep her sister away.

”Of course I am, I’m not stupid,” she hisses in response, hackles raising as Calendulaclaw lands on the ground. She then looks back down at the little kittens. They both have the more swirled stripes that Killfang and Calendulaclaw’s father had, but neither of them got.

One is a dusty ginger colour, and the other is a light cream. Neither look particularly like Calendulaclaw or herself, but it’s better to be safe than sorry and give them Clan names.

”You should name one Lionkit. Or Lionesskit.” Calendulaclaw suggests, reaching out and gently nudging one of the tiny sleeping bundles. Killfang doesn’t bother snapping at her, but Calendulaclaw still pulls back after a moment anyways.

”You know they’re not going to have it very easy, regardless of if you succeed or not.” Killfang has never been very fond of creeping around uncomfortable topics, and so she cuts through the inane babble that Calendulaclaw is trying to trick her into. They lock eyes, and Killfang represses a shiver at the look in her sister's eyes.

”Of course I know that; it’s already taken care of.” She snaps back, and Killfang rolls her eyes at Calendulaclaw’s tone. Of course she’s already got a backup plan. When Calendulaclaw speaks up again, Killfang’s ears flatten in annoyance. ”Hm, Lionesskit sounds dumb, just do Lionkit. Maybe stick with the same first letter? Like a Littlekit, or Larkkit.”

”Her name is Lilykit, now drop the name conversation and stop pretending to be helping me. When.”

Calendulaclaw’s face scrunches up like she ate something particularly sour, and then she gives a heavy sigh, and dramatically looks back to the entrance of the den. ”Soon. Maybe 5 moons? Hopefully not until these two are out of the Nursery, but there’s a lot of moving parts that could trigger it sooner. You have to come back.” Calendulaclaw looks back down when she finishes speaking, and Killfang snarls.

”You know well why I won’t come back. You can tell them to stop trying to make me, because you all know what will happen if they do.” Her snappy tone seems to make Calendulaclaw flinch, but she knows it’s just for show. Calendulaclaw doesn’t care either way, but they both know that the others will. They have plans, and Killfang knows that those plans require both of them alive and well.

Calendulaclaw gets up and gets her front paws up on one of the steps, before turning back for one last comment, probably hoping that she’ll get the last word in.

”You’ll have to come back one day, and when you do, they’re not going to take it easy on you. So you’d best hope you do it before it’s too late.”

With that, she launches herself up and out of the den, and Killfang is left snarling in her wake. Lionkit is a nice name, she will give her that. Slowly she lowers her head back down, resting her chin on her paws. She looks at her kits, and smiles softly. Yes, Lionkit and Lilykit are perfect names.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Snickersnee presses close to Diamondstorm, her ears flattened. She didn’t want to come on this patrol. Or, no, that’s a lie. She was all for it yesterday, but that was a much more masculine day. Today she feels unsure of herself, and is scared of letting everyone down.

Honestly, she’s fairly certain that Diamondstorm is ever worse off in this situation. Snickersnee has spent moons training to be able to hold his own, but she knows that Diamondstorm was a kittypet before joining KeyClan, and after spending the last week getting to know him, she knows that even after all this time he’s never gotten very good at fighting.

There’s a crunch somewhere to the right, and Snickersnee and Diamondstorm both freeze up immediately.

Cypressstar doesn’t seem to be too thrown off, and with a low growl, the large, flurry tom is rushing through the bushes, Deerdash and Babypuff are close on his heels. Wishflower shares a look with Snickersnee, and then with a roll of her eyes the three of them follow, Diamondstorm lagging behind a little bit, but not enough that Snickersnee thinks it’s on purpose; he’s just a slower runner.

Getting around the last bush, it’s to a scene of Cypressstar and Deerdash hissing and swiping at a rather thin looking fox, and Babypuff trying to catch it in the back legs as it backs away. Wishflower plants herself between Cypressstar and Deerdash, and the fox looks almost panicked.

Snickersnee follows suit, snarling loudly at the fox, and it turns to flee. It ends up face to face with Babypuff, and lashes out quickly before darting off to the trees in the direction of the border line, hopefully to not return.

Babypuff’s cry splits the silence, and Snickersnee dashes forward, her ears flattened as she circles the younger molly with wide, scared eyes. There’s blood on the ground, and Snickersnee is completely certain that the fox wasn’t bleeding.

”Out of the way!” Wishflower shouts, and Snickersnee is quick to scamper out of the way. The torbie manages to get Babypuff to raise her head, and Snickersnee feels a chill run through her from nose to tail tip, and she heads back to Diamondstorm, eyes wide.

”She’s fine; we’ll have to get Weasel to look it over though.” Wishflower meows, and honestly Snickersnee is so wound up that her words don’t do anything to relieve her tension.

Wishflower starts heading back to camp, Babypuff presses up against her side, and after a moment of hesitation Snickersnee pulls forward to stand on Babypuff’s other side. She gives Diamondstorm an apologetic smile, and he waves her off with a fond smile.

”We should head after it, make sure it actually left our territory,” comes Deerdash’s soft voice, and after a few seconds, Diamondstorm and Cypressstar head off after it, and Deerdash heads off with them.

Wishflower sighs softly, and then their little trio is heading back to camp, Babypuff keeping them at a slower pace, probably still in shock. Snickersnee’s pretty sure she’s fine, and the scratch was on the side of her face that was already missing an eye, and so she’s sure that everything’s going to turn out for the best.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Skullbash grins to himself as he prances over to the gorgeous bengal. He just got away from Slybird after asking her for some good flirting advice, and he’s sure he’ll charm the fur right off this guy’s back.

”Hey hey, Ironhead! Wait up!” he shouts, and the cinnamon tom does stop. Skullbash mentally cheers, and tries his damndest to not let it show on his face.

”Yes, Skullbash, what is it?” Ironhead replies, and Skulbash is already swooning. He has a strangely high voice, but it has an almost melodic undertone to it, and Skullbash could honestly listen to him talk all day and never tire of it.

Which is, of course, why he just had Slybird coach him through flirting for the last day and a half.

”I was wondering, do you have an extra heart?”

Ironhead’s whole face seems to scrunch in on itself while Skullbash speaks. ”What? Why would I-”

”Because mine was stolen!” Skullbash cuts him off before he can finish speaking, and is met with a concerned look.

”Are you alright? I didn’t know you could live without a heart; I’ll keep an eye out for it, but I’m not too sure what a heart looks like?” Ironhead sounds so concerned, and Skullbash’s mouth opens and closes uselessly as he tries to figure out where the hell he went wrong here.

”Ah, no, it’s, um. It’s alright, I’m sure I’ll find it somewhere. Though, I must ask, are you tired?”

Ironhead looks even more concerned, and gets a bit closer to place a paw on Skulbash’s chest, face scrunched up in concentration. ”I’m not tired, are you? It must be hard living without a heart. Are you okay to go on patrols? Because we should tell Weasel, or maybe Cypresss-”

”Oh no, I’m not tired! I just thought you might be, since you’ve been running through my mind all day!”

Ironhead slowly puts down his paw, and assesses Skullbash with narrowed eyes. After a good solid minute of just staring, he suddenly walks away, and Skullbash races after him in a panic.

”I’m so sorry if I offended you at all! I get it, I’m probably coming on too strong--”

”I have no idea what you’re talking about, with coming on too strong, or offending me. But we really should get you to see Weasel. I think something might be seriously wrong if you think I’m small enough to be able to get inside your mind and run around. And with your missing heart, I really don’t understand why Weasel hasn’t prohibited you from going on strenuous patrols yet. You should be resting, Skullbash, this is- I’m being serious! Why are you laughing!” Ironhead’s voice is more of a whine now, and Skullbash can’t keep himself upright from how hard he’s laughing. He collapses on the ground, rolling onto his back, and this just seems to make Ironhead even more concerned. ”No, no, come on, get up! It can’t be a good sign that you can just collapse like that, you need help!”

Skullbash can barely breathe at this point he’s laughing so hard. He twists around, and knocks Ironhead’s legs out from under him. Ironhead collapses over Skullbash, and he just barely hides a wince at the sudden weight dropped on his chest.

”Oh no, I’m so sorry! Skullbash, are you alright? Oh no, I’m crushing you I’m sorry!” As Ironhead speaks he scrambles around, attempting to get his paws back on solid ground without possibly stepping on Skullbash at all. It makes Skullbash stop laughing, instead simply looking up at the stupid bengal with what is probably the fondest expression he’s ever made in his life.

”Ironhead, stop,” he whispers, and Ironhead freezes instantly. Slowly the younger tom turns to meet Skullbash’s eyes, and there are tears welling up in his gorgeous amber eyes. Skullbash leans forward as much as he can, and licks from Ironhead’s nose all the way up to between his ears. He does this a few times, in fact, and eventually Ironhead gently lets himself just lay on Skullbash, a low purr rumbling from deep in his chest.

”There’s nothing wrong with me, I was trying to flirt with you.” Skullbash huffs, and Ironhead freezes up again. There’s a few moments where neither of them do anything, and then Ironhead lifts his head again to narrow his eyes at Skullbash, looking at him cautiously.

”I don’t know what a flirt is, but it does mean you’re not missing your heart, right?” Ironhead questions, and Skullbash laughs so hard he ends up puking.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

”You said no one would get hurt..” Cottonspore growls, and Calendulaclaw flattens her ears. He feels bad for being so mean, but he shoves down that feeling. She promised, and he’s not going to show her anything other than anger until she explains herself.

”I’m really sorry, Cottonspore. Mary doesn’t always tell me everything, and I really thought everything would be okay. She didn’t warn me of the rats, or the fox. I swear.”

Cottonspore eyes her warily, but there’s nothing but sincerity written on her face.He thought he was onto something, thinking that maybe the rats and that fox were sent by The Freakshow. Though, if Calendulaclaw says she doesn’t know, then maybe they didn’t? He really thought he was onto something here, that maybe Calendulaclaw and The Freakshow were in cahoots, and that the rats were found on a patrol with her to make him trust her more, to make him think that she was something untouchable. To think that she was some kind of savior since no one got any serious injuries.

He feels bad for doubting her like this, but at the same time, he _knows_ that Mary is part of The Freakshow. So maybe he isn’t that far off?

”How can you _trust_ her, though? She’s part of The Freakshow; hell, I’m pretty sure she runs the place! How can you trust anything she says? Trust that she isn’t lying to you? How do I trust you, knowing that you trust someone like that?”

Calendulaclaw’s frown gets even more pronounced, and she sits down carefully, her tail curling around her paws in a way he’s come to know means she’s uncomfortable.

”She’s not actually bad, you know. The Freakshow gets a bad rep, but they’re not bad cats. They’re misunderstood; they have hopes and dreams too. The cats that Cypressstar talks to, they drove out the cats that now make out The Freakshow. If a cat doesn’t fit their idea of a ‘nice’ cat, then they chase them into the dark. So what if a cat has an ambition to be great? So what if a cat doesn’t agree with a corrupt system, and works to change it?” There are tears forming in her eyes, and Cottonspore just keeps feeling worse and worse for snapping at her about this.

”We can’t let Cirque de Étoile stay in charge of this Clan’s beliefs, knowing how awful they are to those who are ambitious. They’ll try to break me, try to break us for even thinking about changing the system. You can’t let them beat us down like this, Cottonspore. It isn’t right!” Calendulaclaw’s voice cracks on the last word, and Cottonspore is thoroughly ashamed of himself for thinking like, like, like _them._

”I’m so sorry, Calendulaclaw. I, I wasn’t thinking. I’m so sorry. Of course, yes, of course I’ll help you! But how?” Cottonspore slowly creeps up to her, and gently licks away some of her tears. She continues to cry for a few minutes, and he stays as close to her as he can. He rests his chin on her head, and gently rubs it over her head. They’ll have to talk about her plans, and maybe he can try to get some others to help them out. After all, they can’t overthrow Cypressstar with just the two of them.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

_It’s dark._

_That’s the first thing that Cypressstar notices when he opens his eyes, and it makes his breath catch in his throat. He closes his eyes, and begins mumbling an incoherent mantra of wanting to leave; of wanting to go home._

_There’s laughter, and he can tell that some of the voices are trying to speak to him, but he focuses on his chant and how much he really does not want to be here._

_”It’s no good, little Ringmaster. The show’s almost begun! And you’re the opening act!” The voice of that damned Scottish Fold echoes over and over, and Cypressstar squeezes his eyes shut so hard he starts crying._

_And suddenly, as soon as it’s begun, it’s over. The laughter all cuts off, and after a moment of confused silence, he feels himself get sucked out of the darkness, back into his own body._


	19. 017 - Just a bunch of mini scenes! Enjoy!

Energypaw whines loudly, tears springing up in his eyes. His face hurts, and he feels so _stupid_ for falling like that. He raises a paw to wipe his face, and whines louder when his white paw comes back stained red.

”Hey hey, that was a wicked tumble!” comes his mentor's voice, and he does his best to stop his tears before she gets close enough to see.

Jinglebee gets her muzzle in his face, looking it over, and then she’s laughing. He pouts up at her, and she cuffs him over the ear with a grin, ”That’s a cool scratch you’ve got there! But don’t worry, if anyone asks, I’ll tell them the other guy got it worse!" Jinglebee’s voice is working miracles calming him, and slowly his breathing evens out enough for him to give her a shaky grin in return, his tail lashing in excitement.

”Y-yeah! I really showed that guy who’s boss!” Energypaw proclaims, and Jinglebee laughs loud enough he’s certain everyone back in camp can hear her. He’s completely forgotten about the blood dripping down his cheek by now, and he races her back to camp.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

”I can’t believe I’m related to someone so stupid.” Pepperpaw states, his lip curling in distaste at how Energypaw is still bouncing around, the blood from the scratch above his eye still oozing. He doesn't seem phased by it, but Pepperpaw is absolutely disgusted.

”And the way that Jinglebee encourages him? Absolutely disgusting.” Mewlin pipes up from beside him, and he nods. Energypaw and his mentor are a chaotic duo, and Pepperpaw is scared of the day they realize they’re so alike. Pepperpaw overheard Energypaw telling Claw that he didn’t see the similarities between himself and his mentor, and Pepperpaw is both offended and glad. Offended that his brother is so stupid, and glad that he hasn’t realized that, by being so similar, Jinglebee is able to manipulate him into ignoring things.

There’s another excited yell, and Pepperpaw winces. Case in point; he’s pretty sure Jinglebee told the idiot something that made him completely forget he was injured.

”The rest of them aren’t any better, but at least the rest of your siblings are kept on a leash.” Pepperpaw huffs a laugh, and rolls his eyes at his mentor’s words. With a sigh, Mewlin gets up, and Pepperpaw shadows the movement perfectly. They head out of camp to go train, and Pepperpaw can’t wait to perfect his climbing so he can rub it in Energypaw’s face.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

”Look out!” shouts Colgate, and he jumps away with a laugh as his sister snarls and lashes out at him. He dances just out of her range, his twisted paw tucked up to his chest, and he watches her with wide, excited eyes as he waits for her to figure out where he is.

”I am going to _rip_ your eyes from your skull, Colgate. Wonder how much you’ll enjoy your fucking jokes when they’re also at your expense!” Mouthwash snarls again, and then lashes out - excuse the pun - blindly.

Colgate dances out of her way again, laughing loud enough that she ends up smacking him square on the nose with her next hit.

”Aha! There you are, you sneaky bitch!” She crows triumphantly, and Colgate whines softly as he moves to lay down, rubbing at his nose with a pout.

”You hit really hard! You don’t have to hit with all your strength!”

Mouthwash laughs at that, and Colgate gives a smile of his own. After all, she can’t see him, so she can’t get mad at him for it.

”Well you’re an asshole, so you deserved it! I wouldn’t hold back against an enemy, and I most certainly won’t hold back against you!” She holds her head high with an air of confidence, and Colgate gives a laugh of his own. She attempts to scowl, but after a few seconds her smile breaks out again.

”I’m not an enemy, I’m your brother!” Colgate insists, and Mouthwash makes her way over to flop out on his back, feeling with her paws for a moment before she stretches her neck out and bites on his ear.

He yelps, and then they both freeze at the sudden sigh.

”You two are ridiculous, can’t you stop fighting for one day? I can’t wait until we’re Jugglers, and I can avoid the both of you for the rest of my life.” Spearmint’s voice is clearly teasing, and Mouthwash snarls at him. Colgate flinches, since her mouth is still attached to his ear, but otherwise doesn’t react.

”Ha, as if! You’ll get kicked out before you get in our first training session. You’re too much of a coward to become an Acrobat. Too bad Pollen already took the position of Weasel’s Juggler, huh?” Mouthwash mocks, and Colgate laughs at the offended look on Spearmint’s face.

Mouthwash gets off of him and makes her way toward Spearmint, still going off on him, and Colgate just continues to lay down, yawning as he does. He’s excited to be a Juggler, yeah, but he’s going to miss this. He’s going to miss being able to spend all his time with his siblings, to spend his time doing nothing but playing and sleeping.

Speaking of, Colgate slowly drifts off to the sound of Mouthwash yelling at Spearmint with a smile on his face.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

”Come on, come on! It’s time to go train!” Claw cheers, prancing around in circles around her still sleepy mentor.

Syrinxecho huffs softly, rolling over to look up at her with bleary eyes. It makes her giggle, and he smiles faintly even as he starts complaining. ”Come on, Claw! Can’t I rest a bit more?”

Claw laughs over his playful whines, and crouches. After wiggling her haunches, she launches forward, batting her paw on Syrinxecho’s shoulder. She then jumps back, and continues to circle him and keep darting in for quick jabs. Syrinxecho groans in playful annoyance as she does, attempting to bat back at her whenever she darts in.

She can hear the other Clan members all around, and she catches a few fond glances from some of the cats as they continue to play. She’s been doing this the last few days, and despite how much he complains, Syrinxecho hasn’t made a move to change their morning routine yet, and so she knows he can’t really be _that_ annoyed about it.

Eventually he gets up, and they head out of the camp with Claw running circles around the Acrobat, and everything feels perfect.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

”You need to be lighter on your paws; you lean too heavily on your front legs when you creep.” Calendulaclaw notes, and Fang bites back a snarl. He nods along to what she says instead, his tail lashing.

He takes a deep breath, and works a little bit harder on balancing himself out, trying to evenly distribute his weight to all four of his paws while also trying not to put too much. Calendulaclaw makes a noise of what he assumes to be encouragement, and he takes this as his sign that he can try creeping around to practice his stealth again.

Calendulaclaw dismisses him soon after, and he heads back to camp with a twinge of unease nagging at the back of his mind.

Out of the corner of his eyes he sees some brown and white flash, and Fang turns with his ears perked up as he focuses on Shadowpaw heading towards the metal mice. He trots after her, and is glad to note that none of their other siblings seem to be around at the moment.

”Hey, Shadow! Wait up!” Fang calls out, and she turns to him, a smile gracing her kind face.

”Fang. To what do I owe this visit?” Shadowpaw playfully teases, and he butts their foreheads together with a soft purr in greeting.

”I actually wanted to know if I could talk to you? Just the two of us; what I tell you can’t go to any of the others. I don’t want them to worry.” Shadowpaw slowly begins to frown as he speaks, but she nods nonetheless. Fang lets out a sigh of relief, and the two of them shuffle around so they’re laying side-by-side, Fang’s shoulder pressed right up against Shadowpaw’s.

He loves all of his siblings, but Shadowpaw’s always been the best to go to for a secret. Pollen feels too guilty holding secrets, and Energypaw can’t be trusted to keep his mouth shut even if his life depended on it. Claw is usually really good with secrets, but she’ll try to do something, and Fand doesn’t want that. And then Pepperpaw’s a wild card; he’ll either keep your secret, or he won’t. There’s really no way to tell what kind of mood he’ll be in.

”You know I’m always here for you. What’s on your mind?” Shadowpaw is so delicate with her question, and Fang is so very grateful that he has such a wonderful sister.

”It’s about Calendulaclaw. She makes me uncomfortable.” He crosses and uncrosses his paws, and ignores the curious look that Shadowpaw is pointing at the side of his face. ”Not, like, a creepy adult kind of uncomfortable, or the way our parents told us that creepy strangers that mean us harm might make us feel. Or,” he pauses, nose scrunching up as he thinks over his words carefully.

”Or, well, kind of. Like, not exactly how mum describes Him. But, like, I think she’s going to hurt someone. Not me, exactly, but I know she’s going to hurt someone.”

The more he speaks the more his voice hardens with conviction, and Shadowpaw looks more and more concerned with every word.

”Like who? If not you, then who do you think she’s going to hurt?" Shadowpaw’s question is quiet, and when he glances over to her, her ears are flattened back against her skull. Frowning, Fang leans over to nuzzle her cheek in a silent apology.

He thinks over his answer carefully. Frowning as he realizes he doesn’t really know. ”I’m not sure, but. I know she’s going to hurt someone, and I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t even want to go train with her, because she’s just so weird to be around, you know?”

Shadowpaw nods, but they both know that she doesn’t really get it. They stay in silence after that, Fang hoping that nothing bad comes to any of their siblings. He’s got a bad feeling about Calendulaclaw, but he’s too scared to bring it up to any Acrobats, or even Cypressstar. He’s been working as hard as he can to not fail any training sessions, so that he can become an Acrobat as soon as possible so maybe he can do something about it.


	20. 018 - KeyClan is a cute group

_Her steps are silent, but she’s used to it. She’s never heard a pawstep make noise, so she doesn’t even pay attention to the lack of noise. She’s trying to peer past the older cats, her eyes narrowing as she tries to focus on literally looking through them._

_It’s not really that hard, normally, but it gets harder when there’s more of them._

_”Oh, Silentkit. There you are.” comes the soft voice of one of the cats up front, and she flattens her ears in embarrassment for being caught. She easily slips past the other cats present, and settles down beside the Javanese molly, looking up at her with wide, pale green eyes that twinkle with hidden starlight._

_”Sorry I’m late; I got lost.” It’s an empty lie and they both know it, but the older cat simply smiles and looks back down at the strange puddle. It’s black, and almost oily in it’s texture, but after a few moments it begins to clear, and once she places a paw on the edge of the water, it suddenly bursts into colour._

_It swirls, colours of every kind mixing everywhere, until a familiar scene settles in front of her. Well, maybe not an intimate familiarity, she never got to be there before she ended up here. However, she’s sat in at enough of these viewings over the last few moons to be familiar with what it is._

_KeyClan’s main camp comes into focus, and the little tabby leans forward with wide eyes, taking in the sight of the three cats that she’d recognize anywhere. She can’t hear anything through the puddle, and she knows they can’t hear her either, but that doesn’t stop her from purring loudly as she watches them._

_It’s her siblings, Bracketkit, Rustkit, and Bunchberrykit. Or, well, it looks like they’re becoming Bracketpaw, Rustpaw, and Bunchberrypaw now. Silentkit has no idea who the Acrobats that come forward are going to be mentoring them, but she closes her eyes and imagines that she could be the one telling them to take good care of her siblings._

_The ceremony is over soon enough, and Silentkit lets a few silent tears slip down her cheeks as she watches the three of them rush over to Lilyfrost. She’s never met her mother either, but she’s grateful to see that she looks better. She looks more alive, and Silentkit hopes that she has many more moons to spend with Bracketpaw, Rustpaw, and Bunchberrypaw before any of them join her up here._

_She watches as the puddle fades back into the inky blackness, and gently leans against the Javanese molly, her eyes shut and a small smile on her face. Cirque de Étoile is nice, and she wants to see her family, but she hopes they live out good lives before they come here, because she wants to hear about everything the living world had to offer._

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It’s such a strange new world, and Malarkeypaw is having a blast. She loved her twolegs, but when Nincompooppaw decided she wanted to go out into the wild, she didn’t think twice before jumping out the open window to the tree, and then jumping down to the soft grass and running like her life depended on it.

It did, technically. Nincompooppaw is her entire life, and she’s completely certain that she wouldn’t be able to survive out here all on her own!

Speaking of Nincompooppaw, Malarkeypaw turns her head to grin up at her, mischief sparkling in her light green eyes. ”I hear there’s some old cats here. Wanna go find them?”

Nincompooppaw returns her grin tenfold, and then they’re both scrambling to their feet and taking off to find one of the strange Magicians that Energypaw had told them about.

A few minutes into their search and Nincompooppaw stops, her eyes wide and ears perked up. She nudges Malarkeypaw and hisses a quick ”look!” and Malarkeypaw does just that.

The two stand there for a few moments, watching the tom with the strangely squished face.

”He doesn’t seem very big, do you reckon there’s something the matter with him?” Malarkeypaw whispers, and NIncompooppaw simply shrugs in response. They continue staring for a few moments, and then the spotted tabby finally notices them. Malarkeypaw is pretty sure he’s glaring at them, but it’s kind of hard to tell with how squished his face is.

”An’ just what do you think _you're_ lookin’ at, hm?” The strange tom snaps, and both the Jugglers freeze up. He doesn’t sound nearly as old as the older cats back in the twoleg Clan, but he looks really old!

Suddenly, Nincompooppaw blurts ”You’re just really old lookin’! How old are you?”

Malarkeypaw can practically _feel_ how angry this makes the strange tom, and Malarkeypaw takes a cautious step back. Nincompooppaw, on the other hand, is completely oblivious, and stands her ground.

”What the f- You can’t just ask some’ne how old they are! I oughta cuff you ‘round the back of your noggin’ for that!” He snarls, and Malarkeypaw is pretty sure she’s visibly shaking by now. Though, she’ll be damned if she isn’t just as curious as her sister.

”Sorry for bothering you, but we’ll leave you alone if you tell us how old you are!” Nincompooppaw opens her mouth, no doubt about to complain, and Malarkeypaw steps on her tail with a tight smile. ”We promise. Right, Nincompooppaw?”

Malarkeypaw barely gets it out between clenched teeth, and Nincompooppaw grumbles something that sounds sort of like an agreement, and so she counts it as a win.

The tom looks even grumpier at this, but he lets out an annoyed sigh, and then -

”I’m 17 moons.”

\- completely shatters both of their lives.

Malarkeypaw blinks a couple of times, and then tries squinting at him. Before she can speak up, Nincompooppaw does.

 _”No fucking way.”_ she whispers, voice breaking half way through. This makes him snarl again, and Malarkeypaw yelps and takes off in the opposite direction. Nincompooppaw is hot on her heels, and yeah. Maybe they’ll get one of the other Jugglers to take them to find the fabled Magicians later.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

”Come on, it’ll be fun!” Slybird whines, and Bookclub rolls their eyes softly before butting their forehead to Slybird’s. She beams, and bounds off to where Skullbash is waiting.

Skullbash grins back at her, and nudges Ironhead with a laugh, ”Hell yeah it’s gonna be fun! Let’s go!” Skullbash cheers, and Ironhead’s ears perk up at his voice. Slybird thinks it’s sickeningly sweet, but she’s happy for them!

With a clear bounce to her steps, Slybird begins climbing up one half of the ‘roller coaster tracks’, as Bookclub calls them. It’s nearing midnight, and the stars are glaringly bright. She can hear Ironhead asking what they’re doing in the background, and she huffs a laugh.

Over the last moon he’s gotten better and not taking everything so literally, but he also gets confused a lot when Skullbash tries to take him on dates. Skulbash and her have been planning this stargazing date for a few days now, and she knows full well how much Skullbash has told Ironhead about it.

Slybird blames the fact that he took a nap. Ironhead’s always seemed a bit dumber right after waking up.

Soon enough she’s at the top, and the bengal carefully sits herself down at the edge. It’s just wide enough for all four of them to sit at the edge, but Bookclub settles just behind her anyways, and rests their chin on her back. They look up, studying the glowing lights in the sky, and Slybird feels deep in her bones that everything is going to be okay.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

”Come on, you can do better than that!” Syrinxecho’s teasing voice washes over Claw like a warm wave of water, and she nimbly shifts her weight, and throws herself sideways. She tucks in her paws as she rolls, and when she’s under the Acrobat she lets them spring back out, effectively winding him as she kicks him in the stomach.

She keeps rolling, and all she can hear from him is pained wheezing. Claw grins, and turns to face him with her ears perked up and tail lashing with excitement.

”How’s that?” She teases back, and Syrinxecho gives a pained laugh in response. Claw purrs happily, and bounds over to him to bump her forehead against his shoulder.

”Jeez, where’d you, learn that one?” He questions, panting slightly as he struggles to get the words out. Claw freezes for a moment, thinking of the strange place she’s been training in her dreams, before simply laughing and nudging him gently again.

”I don’t know! Must be that instinct you’ve been trying to get me in touch with,” Claw teases gently, and Syrinxecho laughs again, and he sounds less pained this time. Claw beams with pride, and begins to prance in little circles around him.

It wasn’t instinct, and she’s pretty sure that he didn’t buy the excuse. It’s the best she’s got, though, since she doesn’t really think there’s a good way to explain where she learned it. It’s better left a secret, she thinks.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Featherdance hums awkwardly under their breath, waiting for the strange molly in front of them to say something.

Dustbunny continues to sit in silence, her bright amber eyes seemingly staring into Featherdance’s very soul. They shuffle their feet, a little self conscious, and finally the longhaired molly seems to snap out of her trance.

"Sorry, you what?”

”I think this place is haunted!” Featherdance insists, barely giving Dustbunny time to stop speaking before they trampled over her words. They then look around, eyes narrowed and ears perked as if expecting some kind of surprise attack.

Dustbunny hums softly, and Featherdance’s attention is immediately back on her.

”Okay, but why?” Dustbunny asks, and Featherdance makes a noise offense. How doesn’t the molly see it? Featherdance really can’t put it into words, and their tail lashes in frustration as they try to put their thoughts into words.

”I, well, the, the dreams!” They insist, and Dustbunny sighs heavily. It makes Featherdance flatten their ears, but they otherwise don’t flinch away from the sound.

”What dreams?” Dustbunny patiently asks, and Featherdance gives a whine of frustration. Has no one else had these weird dreams?

”The creepy dreams! The weird dark building with all the scary cats! It’s dark, and there’s cats from here that are also in there! I don’t know who, but I know there’s KeyClan cats there, and it scares me! Maybe they’re haunted? Maybe everyone here is actually dead and I’m a _GHOST?”_

Featherdance stops to gulp for air, and Dustbunny stares at them impassively.

”You’re ridiculous. Go to bed.” Dustbunny then turns on her heel and heads back to the Arcobat’s den. Featherdance whines high in their throat, but they trail after her with defeat regardless. Maybe they should talk to Sunsetkiss next time instead.


	21. 019 - Disaster Strikes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning! Explicit descriptions of violence and death! There will be a brief recap at the very bottom if you wish to skip the gore! The recap also includes things not explicitly stated in the scenes, so even if you read the post, please read the recap as well!

_It’s dark. Claw flattens her ears, and approaches cautiously. She’s been coming to this strange place in her dreams for a while now, but it still gives her the creeps. She spots Calendulaclaw, and she perks up immediately._

_Claw bounds over, but what she hears makes her freeze._

_”Cottonspore is weak, Mary. He’s not ready; we should strike when Annie’s kits are out of the Nursery! At least we know Annie won’t betray the plan.” Calendulaclaw hisses, and Claw flattens herself to the ground and approaches slowly. She doesn’t know where the strange dark cat that’s been helping her train is, but he’s drifting out of her thoughts completely as she listens in on the two mollies._

_”You know well that we can’t do that, Carrie! There's no time; Cypressstar knows.” The other molly - Mary, apparently - laughs. Her face is bright, and Calendulaclaw looks like she was just slapped. Mary sneers, and answers her unasked question. ”I’ve been visiting him long before you found this place. He knows that something’s going to happen, though the buffoon seems to think it’ll be an attack from the outside! That’s why I sent the rats, and that fox! I sent them to solidify his beliefs; to make sure he didn’t suspect you. You have to strike soon, before-”_

_Claw closes her eyes, and she feels deep in her bones that she won’t be opening them in her nest again. She can feel Mary and Calendulaclaw looking at her, and she mentally apologizes to Fang for being so reckless. Slowly she raises her paw, and looks down at the dark stick that she accidentally stepped on when she was trying to get closer._

_”Ah, Claw. What a pleasure to see you.” Calendulaclaw cooly mews, and Claw suddenly understands why Shadowpaw was telling her the older molly makes her uncomfortable. She hesitantly smiles, and sits up._

_”Ah, hello, Calendulaclaw! It’s, uh, a nice night, isn’t it?” Claw mentally winces at her own words, and the look in Calendulaclaw’s eyes somehow turns colder. The ginger tabby turns back to the scottish fold, and Mary gives a cruel smirk and nods._

_The next thing Claw registers is pain. She stumbles back, ears flattened against her skull as she looks up at Calendulaclaw in horror. She can feel something hot and wet on her chest fur, and she shakily looks down. It’s so dark, but despite that she can still make out the oddly pretty shade of red that’s staining the white fur._

_She opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out but a warbling gargle, and she stumbles back a few more steps. Everything is getting fuzzy, and she can barely focus on either molly anymore. Claw turns, not really sure where she’s going to go, but the sudden motion makes her head spin, and after a few seconds of just wobbling there, she collapses, and everything goes black._

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Pepperpaw yawns, and leans more against the body beside him. After a few moments of nuzzling against the cold fur, he stops, and frowns.

Blinking open his eyes, Pepperpaw waits for his eyes to adjust to look at the body of his sibling. It’s Newleaf, and it had been a particularly warm night, so why are they so cold? He raises a paw, and nudges Claw softly. ”Hey, Claw, come on. It’s time to wake up.”

There’s no response, and the rest of his siblings seem to be waking up as well. Shadowpaw and Fang’s heads poke up from behind Energypaw’s back, and Pollen shifts against Pepperpaw’s back with a tired hum.

Frowning, Pepperpaw nudges her a little bit harder. ”Claw, this isn’t funny. I know you’re a light sleeper.” There’s still no response, and Pollen seems more awake now. She gets to her paws, and Pepperpaw doesn’t even complain when she steps on him to get closer to Claw.

”Claw, are you alright?” She asks, her voice soft, before she begins running her paws and muzzle against her, presumably attempting to warm her up. Pepperpaw can feel his breathing begin to quicken, but he doesn’t move. Fang also hurries to get closer, and Energypaw whines in annoyance when he steps on his tail.

There’s an odd red liquid coming from her neck, and Pepperpaw moves forward on nothing but instinct to touch his paw to it. His movement drawns everyone else’s attention, and Pollen chokes in horror when it coats his white paw. He pulls it back, slowly, and just blinks down at it.

It takes a good minute, and then there's nothing but noise.

He hears Energypaw leap out of the metal mouse, yelling at the top of his lungs for Weasel. Pollen shoves him aside, and frantically presses her paws to the liquid, as if trying to stop it from flowing. He can hear Shadowpaw wailing, and Fang also leaves the metal mouse, but Pepperpaw can hear him pacing angrily just outside of it, and he can also hear when he half jumps back up, his front paws settling on the metal for a moment before he goes back to pacing.

He can hear their parent’s voices, but he can’t make sense of what anyone is saying. He lets his dad drag him out of the metal mouse, all his paws and his tail soaked in the red liquid now. Through the mist in his mind, one word seems to stand out.

”-blood-”

Ah, that makes sense. Slowly he looks down, focusing on the red liquid - the _blood_ that’s all over his paws. His breathing quickens again, and he begins looking around frantically, seeing but not really making sense of what’s going on. Energypaw and Shadowpaw are on either side of Mist, and all three of them are crying so hard that their own paws are damp with it. Fang is snarling, and he looks like he’s yelling at Pollen and Weasel, but Pepperpaw can’t seem to hear him.

Stumbling back a few steps, he hears someone call out for him, but he doesn’t stay long enough to find out who. He runs out of the camp, his eyes wide and ears flattened as he lets his paws simply carry him. He doesn’t know where he’s going, and he doesn’t know why, but he can’t focus enough to even think about stopping.

Hours later Fang comes to find him, and he curls around his brother as he finally breaks down. They sit there for a long time, sobbing into each other’s fur, but Pepperpaw doesn’t know how long. All he knows is when they get back to the camp, Claw is nowhere to be seen, and there's a fresh patch of recently dug up dirt at the edge of the camp where he ran out earlier.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Fang narrows his eyes, watching Calendulaclaw closely. She practically glides through the water of the swamp, and Fang can’t help but think it’s almost too graceful. He knows very well how many strange plants are in the water; he watched Energypaw fail to learn how to swim here after getting snagged on one, after all.

Calendulaclaw seems completely unaffected by any of the plants, even with how much bigger she is than Energypaw of himself. He slowly slips into the water, shuddering at the slimy feel of the plants under his paws before he kicks off to the deeper section. They’ve been here for the last few days as he gets a hang on how to swim, and he’s been nervous around her since day one.

They started training here the day after Claw was found dead, and she’s made sure to get him out of the camp every day since. Part of him wants to think she’s being a good mentor, and trying to get his mind off such a traumatic event, but she seems so unaffected. Everyone was outraged at how she could die of a neck wound in the metal mouse surrounded by all her siblings, but Calendulaclaw seemed completely unaffected by it. Which makes a bit of sense, since she didn’t know Claw very well, but she’s seemed almost annoyed with how much it gets brought up. Which, again, makes some sense, but it’s still getting on his nerves.

Lost in his thoughts, Fang kicks a little too fast, and on his next kick, his head goes under the water.

He flails his limbs blindly, scratching at his one back leg to try and get the offending plant off of him. It takes a few moments of pure panic, but eventually he gets it off, and gulps for air the moment his head breaks the surface. Fang whips his head around, trying to find Calendulaclaw, and freezes when he spots her.

She’s on the edge of the swamp, completely out of the water. Her golden yellow eyes are narrowed, and she doesn’t even twitch when they make eye contact. Slowly, he swims his way to the other side of the swamp, checking back over his shoulder at her every few seconds, and making sure to keep his movements slow and controlled so another plant doesn’t wrap itself around him.

The second his paws are all back on land, he bolts. Fang takes off back to camp, and he’s both glad and scared to not hear Calendulaclaw behind him. He doesn’t know what just happened, but he does know that the look in her eyes terrified him to the bone. She looked almost _disappointed,_ as if she didn’t want him to make it. After all, why else would she have left the water when he was drowning?

He lets these thoughts fill his mind, and avoids her for the rest of the day. He presses close to his siblings at every chance he gets, and he doesn’t miss the strange looks that his mentor shoots him for the rest of the day.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Auletris frowns softly, standing next to the broken metal tracks. Synrinxecho is at the edge of the camp, laying down next to the still fresh looking grave. His front paws are on the loose soil, and she can tell from here that he’s still crying. She glances over to Weasel, and with a brief touch of their foreheads, the little Tamer turns and heads back to her Juggler.

Sighing, the tall siamese then makes her way over to her brother. Syrinxecho is a large cat, almost larger than Skullbash, but like this he looks so small. It makes her think of when they were just kits, and that thought just makes her more sad.

Syrinxecho has always been so bright, so loving. He’s her antithesis, and seeing him like this makes her unnaturally uncomfortable. She hasn’t seen him without a smile on his muzzle since before they joined KeyClan, and even before then he was always telling jokes and making others happy.

She sits down next to him, and he doesn’t even flinch. They sit there in silence, staring at the grave, and Auletris can’t even find the words to begin comforting him.

Auletris has no idea how hard it must be, for him to lose his Juggler like this. He was so excited when Cypressstar named him as Claw’s mentor, and she was happy for him. He seemed a lot closer with Claw than she ever was with Wishflower, and looking at him now, she wonders if maybe they were even closer than a mentor and apprentice normally was. They used to playfight, and play pranks on some of the grumpier members on occasion. Hell, she’d almost go so far as to say Syrinxecho saw her as a little sister, or maybe even a daughter.

Slowly, Auletris lowers herself down to lay next to him, her chin resting up on his shoulder. He shifts the slightest, just to make it more comfortable, but otherwise doesn’t move.

Auletris can’t find the words to say, but she knows deep down that there really aren’t any. There’s nothing she can say here to make him feel better, and she doesn’t even think she’d want to. He’s mourning, and her trying to tell him to get over it would do more harm than good. So, she simply lays there, soaking in his warmth and politely ignoring when he begins shaking with silent sobs.

He’ll get over it, eventually, but he has to do it on her own terms. And she’ll be here for him when he’s ready.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It’s quiet, and the lithe ginger tabby slowly stalks her way through the camp. Her paws make squishing noises as she walks, but it's easy to ignore. The moon slips out from between two clouds, and she pauses for a moment to look up at it. If anyone else were awake and outside they’d notice the path of red pawprints leading from the body slowly oozing it’s life away to her paws, but as it is there’s no one to see, and so she doesn’t think about it.

Nimbly she jumps up, balancing carefully on the edge of the little metal perch on the Ringmaster’s den, and she raps her claws against it gently. There’s noise from inside, and soon enough the little metal slider goes up.

”What is-” Cypressstar begins to ask, but then cuts off with a gurgle. He stares at her with his one working eye, and in an attempt to get away, he steps back and slips back down into his little den.

He yowls, the sound echoing through the camp despite the gurgling, and she grins. Finally, it begins.

A second after she hears his body smash against the ground, she herself is being ripped down from the perch. She hisses, and turns angrily to slash at the offending cat’s face.

Swiftwind reels back, releasing her tail from between his teeth, but she doesn’t give him any time to breath. She slashes again, a claw catching on his eyelid, and she continues with the swing without batting an eye. Blood sprays into the air and there’s flesh hanging from her claw, but she doesn’t pay it any mind. Raising her head, she gives a yowl of her own.

Tonight, KeyClan falls.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Poisonfang awakes to multiple screeches, and squints into the darkness. They’re sleeping in a seperate room from the other Acrobats, because they got kicked earlier thanks to someone else’s stupid dream. Their ears perk up at another yowl, this one sounding more in pain.

Racing out of the building, they freeze for a moment at the sight. There’s cats running this way and that, and Poisonfang takes a moment to take in whatever they can. Pollen and Wishflower are leading Swiftwind to the metal snake, his face covered in blood. They spot Weasel’s head poking out from under the metal snake, and heading to Cypressstar’s den where Skullbash and DIamondstorm have just disappeared into.

There’s another pained yowl, and Poisonfang turns in the direction of the sound, eyes narrowing. They watch Cottonspore get his mouth around Turtledove’s back leg, and they can hear the crunching of the bone from here.

With a snarl, they launch forward, colliding with Cottonspore’s flank and digging their claws in immediately. He gives a pained yowl, but they ignore it and curl their claws in even more. It’s been so long since they were in a fight, and despite the exciting rush of adrenaline, they definitely didn’t miss this.

Cottonspore shakes, trying to knock them off, but Poisonfang simply lets themself swing with his momentum, and uses it to swing up higher on his body, and lunges forward to sink their teeth into the back of his neck. Cottonspore being shaking more violently, and they can feel his flesh give in and begin to rip between their teeth.

Suddenly the world is spinning, and Poisonfang lets him go with a pained gasp. Cottonspore managed to throw himself onto his back, effectively crushing Poisonfang under his weight. They can distantly hear Turtledove yell in the background, but that’s all the warning they get before there’s teeth and claws at their throat.

Poisonfang feebly tries to fight back, scratching mercilessly at his stomach, but Cottonspore bites harder, and Poisonfang feels the strength draining from their limbs. They slowly go limp, and they can feel their eyes begin to roll to the back of their head. They can feel the blood shooting from their neck, as well as the blood from Cottonspore’s stomach. Distantly they think they hear him run off, and Turtledove’s cries getting closer, but before they can confirm either of those things, they shut their eyes and everything is quiet.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

There’s yelling outside, and Killfang glances over to watch how Toothpaste frantically begins corralling her kittens. She watches carefully how she gets Colgate under her, and how Toothbrush and Toast scurry over as well. Mouthwash is blindly making her way over, and little Spearmint seems to be frozen in fear.

After a split second of contemplation, Killfang decides that yes, she does want to be part of his battle. She lunges forward, and the first thing that reaches her ears is the soft crunching of a little kitten's bones. She places a paw on his back, and pulls her head back, easily snapping his neck for good measure.

Killfang looks up at Toothpaste's sharp inhale, and then lunges for Mouthwash without any of her previous hesitation.

Suddenly there’s a weight on her side, and she snarls and twists to try and bite at whoever thought they could jump in and interrupt.

She spots ginger fur, and snarls as she recognizes the bulky form of Flareblitz. He snarls right back, and Killfang tries to twist around more to snap at him. She notices Mewlin and Grasswhistle jump in as well, but they seem more focused on helping Toothpaste and her kits out, so she doesn't pay them any mind.

She gives a triumphant yowl when her claws finally hit flesh, and she manages to dig her front claws into Flarebitz’s soft belly and pulls. She gets herself closer to him with the movement, but it also works for tearing through the soft flesh. He howls in pain, and the second he lets go of her, she twists around enough to get a better grip and rip even harder at his belly.

She can faintly hear Mewlin scream outside, and then the world goes dark-

Oh, no, the sliding metal door has fallen. There’s a faint splash of blood that sprays against her face, and in the dark she sinks her teeth into Flareblitz’s neck and lets his life drain away.

Lionkit and Lilykit make soft noises from a corner of the den, and she makes her way over to them carefully. ”Hush, my little darlings. No one can harm you.” She softly tells them, and lays down on the bloody floor to curl around them. Eventually someone will have to come and get them, and it’s only going to go one of two ways.

Either Calendulaclaw is going to win, and kill the opposition and get those still alive to follow under her. Or Calendulaclaw is defeated, and at the end of the day, Killfang is either going to be killed or kicked out for going along with her sister's plans.

Mulling over the options, Killfang finds she doesn’t mind either. She hates her sister, and it would be nice to know that she could be defeated, but at the same time. At the same time if she’s kicked out or killed, there’s the question of her kits. She gently places her tail over them, and thinks. She didn’t want them; they most certainly weren’t a blessing or anything along those lines. But at the same time, they are her children. They are Calendulaclaw’s kin, so if she was kicked out or killed, what would become of them? Would they be killed or kicked out with her? Or would they keep her children alive and in the Clan, raising them on stories of how evil their mother and aunt are?

Either way, she decides it doesn’t really matter. Even if they stay here, she’s confident that they’ll know Calendulaclaw regardless. After all, if she could get that innocent Juggler to train with the Freakshow, then she could easily get Lionkit and Lilykit to train with her there as well.

She sighs softly, and then simply lets her eyes slip shut. She’ll deal with it when the morning comes.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Snarling to himself, Cottonspore stalks into the Musician’s den. He can hear someone running after him, but at this point he doesn’t care. He’s still bleeding from his stomach, and his fur is sticking to his spine. It started raining when he started walking away from Poisonfang, and so he had made a beeline to the building to get out of it.

He now stands at the entrance to their den, and glares down Ancientpower. Puffball is cowering behind his mate, and Cottonspore doesn’t pay him any mind. He knows, deep down, that if what Calendulaclaw says comes to pass, that there’s no chance either of them will be sticking around much longer anyways.

He approaches them, and doesn’t bother to look back when he hears paws scrambling just outside. Mentally he notes that it’s Steelwing, Bracketpaw, and Rustpaw, but he otherwise doesn’t acknowledge them. He crouches low, and then launches forward, claws unsheathed as he reaches for Ancientpower.

The old Musician easily jumps out of the way, and Cottonspore snarls in anger as he crashes face first into the wall. He stumbles back to his feet, slipping slightly on the blood that’s still slowly pouring from his stomach. His vision is blurry, and while he thought it was from the rain in his eyes, a little voice at the back of his mind tells him it’s him getting dizzy from all the blood loss.

There’s a shape barreling towards him, and he lashes out without really thinking about it. The form stops and collapses, and he takes a moment to look at all the new blood mixing with his on the floor. He assumes it was one of the Jugglers, since he’s pretty sure neither of the Musicians or Steelwing would’ve gone down that easily.

There’s a pained cry in the distance, and Cottonspore snarls. He moves to take a step forward, but then lists to the side. He slams against the wall, and there’s a very concerning noise coming from up above all of a sudden.

Cottonspore doesn’t even get enough time to look up, before suddenly the roof is falling down on him. He yowls, the pain of his stomach becoming a lot more pronounced as he’s squished onto the floor There’s others that get caught under the falling debris, he can tell that much, but he can’t pick out who. The pain spikes to an unbearable level, and then suddenly, everything simply stops.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Jinglebee snarls, a fierce rage building in her chest like never before.

She had woken up to sounds of pain and anger, and she’s had to watch as her family has been torn apart before her very eyes. Right outside of the building had been Lilyfrost, blood pooling around her almost comically. From her were a path of bloody footprints, and she had been horrified to learn from Skullbash and Diamondstorm that Cypressstar had lost a life, and was probably going to be losing at least one more before the end of the night.

But now she’s here, back arched as she awkwardly circles Calendulaclaw at the top of the metal tracks.It’s pouring rain, and distant flashes of lightning, and loud roars of thunder all around. The metal is slick with rain, and the metal scraps innocently sitting underneath look scarier than they ever have. Calendulaclaw is snarling and trying to swipe at her, her ginger fur stained a dark crimson.

The worst part of it, Jinglebee decides, is that Calendulaclaw is trying to fucking monologue at her.

”-esn’t have to be like this! You’re better than them, you’re better than him! This Clan is being led to RUINS with Cypressstar at the helm! Join me, and we can lead KeyClan to greatness! The Cirque are the real evil ones, you’ve been led astray!”

Absolutely disgusting, Jinglebee thinks. With a snarl, and lunges forward, and Calendulaclaw steps back instinctively. Jinglebee lashes out, her claws catching Calendulaclaw on the cheek, and the skin rips open and blood sprays across the metal.

Calendulaclaw snarls, and then suddenly she’s out of sight. There’s a loud howl, and Jinglebee carefully leans forward with wide eyes. She looks down at the ground, distantly thinking it’s a god thing it was raining. Calendulaclaw is struggling to get to her feet on the slippery metal, and Auletris and Ironhead are slowly approaching, their growls audible even from so high up.

One wrong step, and suddenly Calendulaclaw trips forward, and Jinglebee recoils in horror. She struggles not to puke, and slowly picks her way back down the tracks. Jinglebee doesn’t spare a look back for the older molly, if only because she doesn’t think she could stomach it. If she closes her eyes too hard, she can still picture the pinkish material on the end of the piece of metal, and the way the red so freely gushed out and over Calendulaclaw’s already damp, ginger fur.

She stumbles a little, and distantly makes note of how Babypuff was yelling at her, before she simply slipped out of consciousness. Yes, this is a perfect place for a nap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recap;;  
> Scene 1: Claw is in The Freak Show. She is killed by Calendulaclaw for hearing her and Mary talk about their plans.  
> Scene 2: Pepperpaw and the rest of his siblings waking up to find Claw dead.  
> Scene 3: Fang learning to swim. He almost drowns, and Calendulaclaw does nothing to help him. He flees back to camp once he's back on shore  
> Scene 4: Syrinxecho and Auletris at Claw's grave, mourning the Juggler.  
> Scene 5: Calendulaclaw kills Cypressstar. She also ends up blinding Swiftwind Not pictured: Calendulaclaw killed Lilyfrost before the scene started. It is vaguely mentioned, but I don't call Lilyfrost by her name here.  
> Scene 6: Poisonfang joins the battle, seeing Cottonspore break Turtlepaw's back leg. They fight him off, but end up getting killed. They do injure him in the process, however.  
> Scene 7: Killfang in the nursery kills Spearmint, and then tries to kill Mouthwash. Flareblitz then jumps in to fight her off, and she ends up killing him as well. Not pictured since it's from Killfang's perspective: Mewlin slips and twists her paw, and when the metal door slides shut, it cuts off half of Grasswhistle's tail.  
> Scene 8: Cottonspore enters the Musicians den, and tries to attack Ancientpower. He ends up hitting the wall, and then Bracketpaw comes rushing over to defend the musicians, but Cottonspore kills him. The roof then ends up caving in, and Cottonspore is crushed under it, and dies. Not pictured but vaguely mentioned: Ancientpower and Steelwing also get crushed. Ancientpower's his are broken, and one of Steelwing's back legs.  
> Scene 9: Jinglebee and Calendulaclaw are at the top of the metal tracks. Caledulaclaw ends up slipping off, and when she's trying to get back to her feet she slips and impales her head on a piece of broken metal.


	22. 020 - The Aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning! There is some mention of the post previous in some scenes! Specifically the one with Wishflower and Swiftwind!

There’s a loud bang, and the ginger molly is awake in seconds. She gets up, and crouches over Lilykit and Lionkit with a low growl. Not once does she even blink as she waits for the metal slider to be opened, ready to pounce. There’s blood dried in her fur, and she’s ready to add a fresh coat to it if the need arises.

When it opens and Auletris stands there, looming threateningly, she pauses.

”Calm down, Killfang. I am not here to bring harm to you.” Auletris pauses, and when Killfang gives a warning snarl, she can just barely make out the roll of the Siamese’s eyes. ”You nor your kittens; I promise.”

She’s not satisfied with this, but it’s good enough. Slowly she moves to sit, her tail curled loosely around her two small kittens as they look up at who could very well be their judge, jury, and executioner.

”As I am sure you’re well aware, last night was. Bloodshed.” Killfang doesn’t miss the way Auletris’ eyes flicked over to the motionless tom on the other side of the room, and she can tell when she notices the little black kitten as well. She bares her teeth, but Auletris doesn’t pay her any mind. Her pale blue eyes are glued on the tiny lifeless form.

There’s a pause, and then Auletris quietly speaks up again.

”Calendulaclaw is dead, which I assume you already know.” She looks up, and Killfang dips her head in a short nod. Of course she knows her sister is dead; Auletris wouldn’t be the one letting her out if she wasn’t. ”She killed and injured many members, and you have done the same. We spent the better half of the morning deciding what to do, and I am here to tell you the verdict.”

Killfang relaxes a little, her ears flicking as she gives a small hum to prompt the younger molly into speaking again. She knows that they’re not going to kill her, because the members of KeyClan aren’t smart or corrupt enough to get her guard down like this only to rip out her throat in the next breath.

”Killfang, you are hereby banished from KeyClan. If you are ever found in our borders again, we will not hesitate in removing you.” Auletris breathes in deeply, and Killfang mostly ignores her, getting up to her paws and nudging Lilykit and Lionkit to follow her lead. When the acrobat speaks up again, she freezes in abject horror.

”Not them.”

She turns slowly, her eyes flashing dangerously. ”I beg your pardon? What the fuck do you mean ‘not them’?” The kittens are crouched low underneath her, but she pays her two clowns no mind.

Auletris raises her head, and Killfang would shiver at the look she’s given if she were a lesser cat.

”It means exactly what you think it means. You, Killfang, have been exiled for the murders you can committed, and are not welcome back here. Your children, however, are decidedly innocent, and will be staying. We will raise them to be brilliant acrobats, and you will not be allowed to witness it. I want to wish you well on your departure, but I would really much rather rip out your eyes, so I believe it best that you get going.”

Killfang snarls up at Auletris again, and then after a moment of thought, she turns and crouches, offering a crooked smile when she meets the wide and terrified eyes of her children.

”I must leave you now, but you will never miss me. I will find you in your dreams, and I promise to never let them make you forget who you are." She doesn’t bother to whisper, and licks the top of each of their little heads, and that’s it.

Killfang makes her way up to the ledge, and with one last snarl at Auletris, she jumps down. She gets running the second her paws hit the ground, and she ignores the angry yowls behind her as she heads to the border. There was only a moment for her to see who was gathered outside, but she finds she’s not that surprised that it seemed to be a vast majority of the Clan. After all, what better way to get a point across than intimidation?

A small chuckle builds in her chest, and she lets herself simply run. Oh, she’ll be back, alright. Some day, somehow, she will return, and she _will_ get her revenge.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It’s quiet.

The camp itself is still bustling with noise, yes, but that’s all background noise. Bunchberrypaw focuses on the sounds of breathing under her ear, but it’s quiet.

Rustpaw is fine, she knows this, but. Knowing that Bracketpaw isn’t here as well? His absence is suffocating, and he can’t even bring herself to cry because she’s pretty sure she cried every last drop of liquid that was in her body over the last week. Rustpaw shifts under her ear, and she doesn’t move. Simple lets her head fall in a new position, her nose smushed up against his chin.

He doesn’t move to get more comfortable, and neither does she. They don’t talk about it, but she knows deep down that neither of them are really coping well. Rustpaw is too rough with himself, and throws himself into some kind of personal training while he waits for the announcement of who his new mentor will be.

And Bunchberrypaw? Well, Bunchberrypaw has pretty much done the opposite. She sits here, in the little metal mouse, and she weeps. She only leaves when necessary, and she knows her behaviour scares both him and the Acrobats of the Clan. She can’t bring herself to care, though, since she doesn’t know what she’d do with herself otherwise.

The loss of both Bracketpaw and Lilyfrost has been hard, and she knows neither of them are doing well.

But that’s okay, because at least they still have each other.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Never before has Auletris felt as useless as she does right now. Between comforting her brother when he gets bad days, remembering Claw, and trying to be a pillar of support for her mate while she has breakdowns about not being enough to help everyone, her paws are certainly full.

Some days she flops over her brother, covering Syrinxecho’s large, bulky form with her own smaller, lankier one. She’s sure it’s humorous to watch, but no one dares laugh. She grooms his ears while he takes little naps, and she wonders how they’re going to get over this hurdle.

Others she curls up with Weasel, easily covering the little molly’s entire body with her own when she actually puts any effort into it. She ignores the way her fur sticks to her skin when it’s wet, and instead focuses on keeping up a steady hum, lulling the little Tamer into a restless sleep from which she’ll awake in under an hour.

It’s a rough time, yes, and Auletris is scared for her loved ones. She still does everything she can to comfort them, however, because she knows they’re all going to come out of this stronger than they ever were before.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

”You should head back to the den; I know sleeping here hurts your hip.”

Ancientpower watches his mate carefully, and notes the guilty way that Puffball flinches. When the gray tom turns to him with a cocky smile, he simply frowns.

”Ah, but my darling Cosmos! Who would be there for you at night? No one else can cuddle away your night terrors!" Puffball mews loudly, and Ancientpower knows full well that they both know it’s a load of dogshit. He continues to frown, and one of Puffball’s eyes twitch.

Eventually Puffball huffs, and then shimmies forward a little bit more, placing his chin on Ancientpower’s shoulder with a soft smile. It makes Ancientpower’s frown melt away, and once there’s a small smile on his own mouth, his mate gives a soft cheer.

”Of course, how could I forget. Of course, feel free to fuck up your joints, it’s fine.” Ancientpower’s tone is flat, and his words are heavily sarcastic. It only makes Puffball laugh, and he can’t help the way his smile grows fonder.

”Must be old age, my dear! Besides,” Puffball shuffles a little bit, and Ancientpower frowns again. He’s not used to his mate sounding so serious, or quiet. ”Your hips are sure to be worse than mine now, and you’re more important than any pain could ever be.”

Ancientpower blinks slowly, and is surprised to feel his eyes welling up with tears.

With a huff that he purposely makes sound annoyed, Ancientpower turns his head away, and rests his chin on his paws. He can feel more than hear Puffball laughing from behind him, and gives a soft smile. The last thing he thinks before he falls asleep is he’s so grateful he got another chance with him in this life.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Grasswhistle hums softly, the sound strong and comforting among the otherwise dreary night sounds. His tail softly flicks behind him, the feeling of half of it being gone still foreign and weird to him. He keeps looking back at it, forgetting so much of it was cut off by the metal slider so recently.

Whenever he does, however, Mist softly licks his cheek, and he’s quickly distracted from the feeling. They’re sleeping in one of the other little rooms in the big building, and their five remaining kits are curled up between them.

They’ve gotten so big, but their size doesn’t stop them from making themselves fit between their parents. They have more room, with Claw gone, but he doesn’t think about that. He tries not to think about it often, if he’s being often. He’s already had a moon to mourn, and while he’s still devastated by the loss of one of his daughters, he has to be strong, for his remaining family.

Energypaw kicks out in his sleep, and Pepperpaw wakes up with a snarl, and Grasswhistle can’t help the chuckle that escapes him when Pepperpaw nips at Energypaw’s ear. Energypaw doesn’t wake up, simply flicking his ear and continuing to sleep peacefully. Pepperpaw grumbles, but otherwise simply settles back down, and is back asleep in moments.

Then Mist laughs, and Grasswhistle turns to look at them fondly. They’re still as gorgeous as the day he met them, and he leans in to give their cheek a lick this time. They give another soft laugh, and nuzzles up into his chin.

Yeah, the loss hurts, but the least he can do is continue to look out for the family he still is. He knows, deep down, that that’s what Claw would want.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It smells like blood.

Toothpaste almost chokes with every breath she takes, panic building at the back of her mind. She looks around, eyes wide with panic, and can’t help but focus on the red stains on the dirt. It’s not easy to wash out a den, unless they keep the metal slider open while it rains, and Toothpaste doesn’t want to do that while she still lives here.

On the opposite side of the den, curled into each other, lay Lionkit and Lilykit. She bares her teeth absently at the sight of them, hating them deep down to her bones. It’s true that they didn’t do anything, and she agreed with Swiftwind when he said they should stay because they’re innocent. She knows that, and yet.

And yet, their mother is who killed Spearmint. Their mother ended the life of one of Toothpaste’s kittens, and even if they are innocent, she knows that she will never truly trust them. Even Flareblitz had been killed in here, and the thought of the grumpy but gentle tom almost makes her sick.

She doesn't move, but she wants to. But to do what? To leave the den, leaving her own kittens alone with Killfang’s? To kill them herself?

No, she knows she could never do either.

So, she sits. She sits, and she continues to breath in a quick, panicked way. She sits, and knows that this will be another night with no sleep. And she accepts that that’s just the way that it is.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

”They’ll be back soon, it’s fine!” Wishflower insists, watching her dad with a pout as he shuffles around anxiously. He’s been like this since Weasel left with the small group to the gathering, and she’s worried for him.

”What if something went wrong? What if only Weasel going was a sign of our weakness? What if another Clan plans an attack before they get back, and so we won’t get any warning? Wishflower, my dear, I love you, but please don’t tell me it’s fine unless you can promise it.” Swiftwind pleads, and Wishflower looks away from him with flattened ears. He can’t see it, of course There’s thick spiderwebs, wrapped around his head and covering his eyes. She had only seen him briefly before they were applied, and she still feels sick when she thinks of the empty socket that his right eye once filled.

”Of course, I’m sorry. Do you want-”

 _”Yes.”_ He stresses, without bothering to hear what she was asking. Wishflower huffs a small laugh, and leans forward to lick between his ears before she squirms her way out of the little den.

Swiftwind didn’t need to hear what she said, because it’s been their routine since Weasel left. Wishflower is heading out to check the borders, trying to find any trace of the group, before she heads back to her injured father. It gives him some time to himself, and also lets him know what’s going on.

Her sight catches on Weasel, and she perks up before heading over. She has another strange tabby with her, and she watches the stranger squirm herself into the den she’d just left. Weasel turns to give her an encouraging smile, and Wishflower lets out a sigh of relief. This is a cat that Weasel trusts, and so Wishflower heads off to get herself something to eat, deciding her father and this stranger can have a moment to themselves.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Steelwing huffs a small laugh, watching the bickering couple in front of him with amusement practically oozing from him. He’s lost track of what they’re bickering about, since he hasn’t been listening for the last 5 minutes, but that’s fine.

Skullbash taps his paw on the ground sometimes, when he’s really trying to drive his point in. Ironhead rolls his eyes, and it makes Skullbash louder. Steelwing gives another laugh, and suddenly both of them are staring him down.

This only makes him laugh more, and the two toms seem to forget whatever they were bickering about and laugh with him.

”I’m right though! The top of the tracks was the best date night we’ve had!” Skullbash insists, and Steelwing laughs even harder. Ironhead looks offended, but there’s a shadow of a smile on his face, and so he knows he’s not actually offended.

Steelwing has been in one of the metal snake spinal joints that Weasel owns for Tamer things since the battle. One of his back legs was crushed, and Weasel has recently informed him that he won’t be able to walk anymore, and will probably have to retire to the Musicians den. Since then, Skulbash and Ironhead have made a point of coming to visit him every day, whether it be both of them, or just one depends on what they’re doing that day.

It’s been fun, and the goofed mates are really good at distracting from both the pain and the sadness that overwhelmed Steelwing when he first woke up after being crushed. It helps, sure, but he’s scared of what will happen when he moves to the Musicians den with Ancientpower and Puffball. Will he be an awkward third to the old couple? Will his friends still come and visit him regularly? He’s not sure about either, but he hopes for the best. After all, he’s still here, and he plans to make the most of it.


End file.
